
Book ,1 3^^ -^ 



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N DARKEST ENGLAND 

AND THE WAY OUT 




GENERAL BOOTH 



In Darkest England 



AND THE WAY OUT 



BY 



GENERAL Wm BOOTH 



CHICAGO 
CHARLES H SERGEL a CO 






TO THE MEMORY OF THE COMPANION, ADVISER AND COMRADE 

Of Nearly 40 Years, 

The sharer of my Every Ambition 

FOR 

THE WELFARE OF MANKIND, 

MY LOVING, FAITHFUL AND DEVOTED WIFE 

This Book is Dedicated. 

i 

Transfer ^ 

engineers School Uby^ 
June 29,1^31 



PREFACE 

The progress of The Salvation Army in its wo.k amongst the poor and 
lost of many lands has compelled me to face the problems which are more 
or less hopefully considered in the following pages. The grim necessities 
of a huge Campaign carried on for many years against the evils which lie 
at the root of all the miseries of modern life, attacked in a thousand and 
one forms by a thousand and one lieutenants, have led me step by step to 
contemplate as a possible solution of at least some of those problems the 
Scheme of Social Selection and Salvation which I have here set forth. 

When but a mere child the degradation and helpless misery of the poor 
Stockingers of my native town, wandering gaunt and hunger-stricken 
through the streets droning out their melancholy ditties, crowding the 
Union or toiling like galley slaves on relief works for a bare subsistence, 
kindled in my heart yearnings to help the poor which have continued to 
this day and which have had a powerful influence on my whole life. At 
last I may be going to see my longings to help the workless realized. I 
think I am. 

The commiseration then awakened by the misery of this class has been 
an impelling force which has never ceased to make itself felt during forty 
years of active service in the salvation of men. During this time I am 
thankful that I have been able, by the good hand of God upon me, to do 
something in mitigation of the miseries of this class, and to bring not 
only heavenly hopes and earthly gladness to the hearts of multitudes of 
these wretched crowds, but also many material blessings, including such 
commonplace things as food, raiment, home and work, the parent of so 
many other temporal benefits. And thus many poor creatures have 
proved Godliness to be " profitable unto all things, having the promise 
of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come. " 

These results have been mainly attained by spiritual means. I have 
boldly asserted that whatever his peculiar character or circumstances 
might be, if the prodigal would come home to his Heavenly Father, he 
would find enough and to spare in the Father's house to supply all his 
Deed both for this world and the next ; and I have known thousands, nay, 

& 



6 PREFACE 

I can say tens of thousands, who have literally proved this to be true, 
having, with little or no temporal assistance, come out of the darkest 
depths of destitution, vice and crime, to be happy and honest citizens 
and true sons and servants of God. 

And yet all the way through my career I have keenly felt the remedial 
measures usually enunciated in Christian programs and ordinarily 
employed by Christian philanthropy to be lamentably inadequate for any 
effectual dealing with the despairing miseries of these outcast classes. 
The rescued are appallingly few — a ghastly minority compared with the 
multitudes who struggle and sink in the open-mouthed abyss. Alike, 
therefore, my humanity and my Christianity, if I may speak of them in 
any way as separate one from the other, have cried out for some more 
comprehensive method of reaching and saving the perishing crowds. 

No doubt it is good for men to climb unaided out of the whirlpool on to 
the rock of deliverance in the very presence of the temptations which 
have hitherto mastered them, and to maintain a footing there with the 
same billows of temptation washing over them. But, alas ! with many 
this seems to be literally impossible. That decisiveness of character, that 
moral nerve which takes hold of the rope thrown for the rescue and keeps 
its hold amidst all the resistances that have to be encountered, is wanting. 
It is gone. The general wreck has shattered and disorganized the whole man. 

Alas, what multitudes there are around us everywhere, many known to 
my readers personally, and any number who may be known to them 
by a very short walk from their own dwellings, who are in this very 
plight ! Their vicious habits and destitute circumstances make it certain 
that, without some kind of extraordinary help, they must hunger and sin, 
and sin and hunger, until, having multiplied their kind, and filled up the 
measure of their miseries, the gaunt fingers of death will close upon them 
and terminate their wretchedness. And all this will happen this very 
winter in the midst of the unparalleled wealth, and civilization, and philan- 
thropy of this professedly most Christian land. 

Now I propose to go straight for these sinking classes, and in doing so, 
shall continue to aim at the heart. I still prophesy the uttermost 
disappointment unless that citadel is reached. In proposing to add one 
more to the methods I have already put into operation to this end, do not 
let it be supposed that I am the less dependent upon the old plans, or that 
I seek anything short of the old conquest. If we help the man it is in 
order that we may change him. The builder who should elaborate his 
design and erect his house and risk his reputation without burning 
his bricks would be pronounced a failure and a fool. Perfection of 
architectural beauty, unlimited expenditure of capital, unfailing watchful- 
ness of his laborers, would avail him nothing if the bricks were merely 
unkilned clay. Let him kindle a fire. And so here I see the folly of 
hoping to accomplish anything abiding, either in the circumstances or the 



morals of these hopeless classes, except there be a change affected in the 
whole man as well as in his surroundings. To this everything I hope to 
attempt will tend. In many cases I shall succeed, in some I shall fail; 
but even in failing of this my ultimate design, I shall at least benefit the 
bodies, if not the souls, of men; and if I do not save the fathers, I shall 
make a better chance for the children. 

It will be seen, therefore, that in this or any other development that 
may follow, I have no intention to depart in the smallest degree from the 
main principles on which I have acted in the past. My only hope for the 
permanent deliverance of mankind from misery, either in this world or 
the next, is the regeneration or remaking of the individual by the power 
of the Holy Ghost through Jesus Christ. But in providing for the relief 
of temporal misery, I reckon that I am only making it easy where it is now 
difficult, and possible where it is now all but impossible, for men and 
women to find their way to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

That I have confidence in my proposals goes without saying. I believe 
they will work. In miniature many of them are working already. But 
I do not claim that my Scheme is either perfect in its details or complete 
in the sense of being adequate to combat all forms of the gigantic evils 
against which it is in the main directed. Like other human things it must 
be perfected through suffering. But it is a sincere endeavor to 
do something, and to do it on principles which can be instantly applied 
and universally developed. Time, experience, criticism, and, above all, 
the guidance of God will enable us, I hope, to advance on the lines here 
laid down to a true and partial application of the words of the Hebrew 
Prophet: "Loose the bands of wickedness; undo the heavy burdens; let 
the oppressed go free; break every yoke; deal thy bread to the hungry; 
bring the poor that are cast out, to thy house. When thou seest the 
naked cover him, and hide not thyself from thine own flesh. Draw out 
thy soul to the hungry — Then they that be of thee shall build the old 
waste places and Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations. " 

To one who has been for thirty-five years indissolubly associated with m.e 
in every undertaking, I owe much of the inspiration which has found expres- 
sion in this book. It is probably difiicult for me to fully estimate the ex- 
tent to which the splendid benevolence and unbounded sympathy of her 
character have pressed me forward in the life-long service of man. to 
which we have devoted both ourselves and our children. It will be an ever 
green and precious memory to me that amid the ceaseless suffering of a 
dreadful malady my dying wife found relief in considering and develop- 
ing the suggestions for the moral and social and spiritual blessing of the 
people which are here set forth, and I do thank God she was taken from 
me only when the book was practically complete and the last chapters 
had been sent to the press. 

In conclusion, I have to acknowledge the services rendered to me in 



3 PREFACE 

preparing this book by officers under my command. There could be no 
hope of carrying out any part of it. but for the fact that so many thous- 
ands are ready at my call and under my direction to labor to the very ut- 
most of their strength for the salvation of others without the hope of 
earthly reward. Of the practical common sense, tha resource, the readi- 
ness for every form of usefulness of those officers and soldiers, the world 
has no conception. Still less is it capable of understanding the height and 
depth of their self-sacrificing devotion to God and the poor. 

I have also to acknowledge valuable literary help from a friend of 
the poor, who, though not in any way connected with the Salvation 
Army, has the deepest sympathy with its aims and is to a large extenf in 
harmony with its principles. Without such assistance I should probably 
have found it — overwhelmed as I already am with the affairs of a world- 
wide enterprise — extremely difficult, if not impossible, to have presented 
these proposals for which I am alone responsible, in so complete a form, 
at any rate at this time. I have no doubt that if any substantial part of 
my plan is successfully carried out, he will consider himself more than 
repaid for the services so ably rendered. 

WILLIAM BOOTH. 

International Headquarters of 

The Salvation Army, 

London, E, C, October, 1890. 



IN DARKEST ENGLAND 



PART I.— THE DARKNESS 



CHAPTER I 

WHY "darkest ENGLAND?" 

This summer the attention of the civilized world has 
been arrested by the story which Mr. Stanley has told of 
"Darkest Africa," and his journeyings across the heart 
of the Lost Continent. In all that spirited narrative of 
heroic endeavor, nothing has so much impressed the 
imagination as his description of the immense forest, 
which offered an almost impenetrable barrier to his ad- 
vance. The intrepid explorer, in his own phrase, 
"marched, tore, ploughed, and cut his way for one hun- 
dred and sixty days through this inner womb of the true 
tropical forest." The mind of man with difficulty en- 
deavors to realize this immensity of wooded wilderness, 
covering a territory half as large again as the whole of 
France, where the rays of the sun never penetrate, where 
in the dark, dank air, filled with the steam of the heated 
morass, human beings, dwarfed into pygmies and brutal- 
ized into cannibals, lurk and live and die. Mr. Stanley 
vainly endeavors to bring home to us the full horror of 
that awful gloom. He says: 

9 



10 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Take a thick Scottish copse dripping with rain; imagine 
this to be a mere undergrowth nourished under the im- 
penetrable shade of ancient trees ranging from loo to 
i8o feet high; briars and thorns abundant; lazy creeks 
meandering through the depths of the jungle, and some- 
times a deep affluent of a great river. Imagine this for- 
est and jungle in all stages of decay and growth, rain 
pattering on you every day of the year; an impure 
atmosphere with its dread consequences, fever and dys- 
entery; gloom throughout the day, and darkness almost 
palpable throughout the night; and then if you can 
imagine such a forest extending the entire distance from 
Plymouth to Peterhead, you will have a fair idea of some 
of the inconveniences endured by us in the Congo forest. 

The denizens of this region are filled with a convic- 
tion that the forest is endless — interminable. In vain did 
Mr. Stanley and his companions endeavor to convince 
them that outside the dreary wood were to be found sun- 
light, pasturage, and peaceful meadows. 

They replied in a manner that seemed to imply that 
we must be strange creatures to suppose that it would 
be possible for any world to exist save their illimitable 
forest. "No," they replied, shaking their heads com- 
passionately, and pitying our absurd questions, "all like 
this," and they moved their hands sweepingly to illus- 
trate that the world was all alike, nothing but trees, 
trees, and trees — great trees rising as high as an arrow 
shot to the sky, lifting their crowns, intertwining their 
branches, pressing and crowding one against the other, 
until neither the sunbeam nor shaft of light can penetrate it. 

"We entered the forest," says Mr. Stanley, "with con- 
fidence; forty pioneers in front with axes and bill-hooks 
to clear a path through the obstructions, praying that 
God and good fortune would lead us," But before the 
conviction of the fore??r dweTS^l-^ Tliat the forest was 
without end, hope faded out of th^ hejirts of the natives 
cf Stanley's company. The men became sodden with 
despair; preaching was useless to move their brooding 
suUenness, their morbid gloom. 



AND THE WAY OUT 11 

The little religion they knew was nothing more that 
legendary lore, and in their memories there dimly 
floated a story of a land which grew darker and darker 
as one traveled towards the end of the earth and drew 
nearer to the place where a great serpent lay supine and 
coiled round the whole world. Ah! then the ancients must 
have referred to this, where the light is so ghastly, and 
the woods are endless, and are so still and solemn and 
gray; to this oppressive loneliness, amid so much life, 
which is so chilling to the poor distressed heart; and the 
horror grew darker with their fancies; the cold of early 
morning, the comfortless gray of dawn, the dead white 
mist, the ever-dripping tears of the dew, the deluging 
rains, the appalling thunder bursts and the echoes, and 
the wonderful play of the dazzling lightning. And when 
the night comes with its thick palpable darkness, and 
they lie huddled in their damp little huts, and they hear 
the tempest overhead, and the howling of the wild 
winds, the grinding and groaning of the storm-tossed trees, 
and the dread sounds of the falling giants, and the shock 
of the trembling earth which sends their hearts with 
fitful leaps to their throats, and the roaring and a rush- 
ing as of a mad overwhelming sea — oh, then the horror is 
intensified ! When the march has begun once again, 
and the files are slowly moving through the woods, they 
renew their morbid broodings, and ask themselves: How 
long is this to last? Is the joy of life to end thus? 
Must we jog on day after day in this cheerless gloom 
and this joyless duskiness, until we stagger and fall 
and rot among the toads? Then they disappear into 
the woods by twos, and threes, and sixes; and after the 
caravan has passed they return by the trail, some to 
reach Yambuya and upset the young officers with their 
tales of woe and war; some to fall sobbing under a spear- 
thrust; some to wander and stray in the dark mazes of 
the woods, hopelessly lost, and some to be carved for 
the cannibal feast. And those who remain, compelled to 
it by fears of greater danger, mechanically march on, a 
prey of dread and weakness. 

That is the forest. But what of its denizens? They 
are comparatively few; only some hundreds of thou- 



12 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

sands, living in small tribes from ten to thirty miles 
apart, scattered over an area on which ten thousand 
million trees put out the sun from a region four times 
as wide as Great Britain. Of these pygmies there are 
two kinds: one a very degraded specimen with ferret-like 
eyes, close-set nose, more nearly approaching the bab- 
oon than was supposed to be possible, but very human; 
the other very handsome, with frank, open, innocent feat- 
ures, very prepossessing. They are quick and intelli- 
gent, capable of deep affection and gratitude, showing 
remarkable industry and patience. A pygmy boy of 
eighteen worked with consuming zeal; time with him 
was too precious to waste in talk. His mind seemed 
ever concentrated on work. Mr. Stanley said: 

"When I once stopped him to ask him his name, his 
face seemed to say, 'Please don't stop me. I must fin- 
ish my task.' 

"All alike, the baboon variety and the handsome inno- 
cents, are cannibals. They are possessed with a perfect 
mania for meat. We were obliged to bury our dead in 
the river, lest the bodies should be exhumed and eaten, 
even when they had died from small-pox." 

Upon the pygmies and all the dwellers of the forest 
has descended a devastating visitation in the shape of the 
ivory raiders of civilization. The race that wrote the 
Arabian Nights, built Bagdad and Granada, and invented 
Algebra, sends forth men with the hunger for gold in 
their hearts, and Enfield muskets in their hands, to plunder 
and to slay. They exploit the domestic affections of the 
forest dwellers in order to strip them of all they possess 
in the world. That has been going on for years. It is 
going on to-day. It has come to be regarded as the 
natural and normal law of existence. Of the religion of 
these hunted pygmies Mr. Stanley tells us nothing, per- 
haps because there is nothing to tell. But an earlier 



AND THE WAY OUT in 

traveler, Dr. Kraff, says that one of these tribes, by name 
Doko, had some notion of a Supreme Being, to whom, 
under the name of Yer, they sometimes addressed prayers 
in moments of sadness or terror. In these prayers they 
say: "Oh Yer, if Thou dost really exist, why dost Thou 
let us be slaves? We ask not for food or clothing, for 
we live on snakes, ants, and mice. Thou hast made us; 
wherefore dost Thou let us be trodden down?" 

It is a terrible picture, and one that has engraved itself 
deep on the heart of civilization. But while brooding 
over the awful presentation of life as it exists in the vast 
African forest, it seemed to me only too vivid a picture 
of many parts of our own land. As there is a darkest 
Africa, is there not also a darkest England? Civiliza- 
tion, which can breed its own barbarians, does it not also 
breed its own pygmies? May we not find a parallel at 
our own doors, and discover within a stone's throw of our 
cathedrals and palaces similar horrors to those which 
Stanley has found existing in the great Equatorial forest? 

The more the mind dwells upon the subject, the closer 
the analogy appears. The ivory raiders who brutally 
traffic in the unfortunate denizens of the forest glades, 
what are they but the publicans who flourish on the 
weakness of our poor? The two tribes of savages, the 
human baboon and the handsome dwarf, who will not 
speak lest it impede him in his task, may be accepted 
as the two varieties who are continually present with us — 
the vicious, lazy lout, and the toiling slave. They, too, 
have lost all faith of life being other than it is and has 
been. As in Africa it is all trees, trees, trees, with no 
other world conceivable, so is it here — it is all vice and 
poverty and crime. To many the world is all slum, with 
the Workhouse as an intermediate purgatory before the 
grave. And just as Mr. Stanley's Zanzibaris lost faith, 
and could only be induced to plod on in brooding sullen- 



14 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

ness of dull despair, so the most of our social reformers, 
no matter how cheerily they may have started off, with 
forty pioneers swinging blithely their axes as they force 
their way into the wood, soon become depressed and 
despairing. Who can battle against the ten thousand 
million trees? Who can hope to make headway against 
the innumerable adverse conditions which doom the 
dweller in Darkest England to eternal and immutable 
misery? What wonder is it that many of the warmest 
hearts and enthusiastic workers feel disposed to repeat 
the lament of the old English chronicler, who, speaking 
of the evil days which fell upon our forefathers in the 
reign of Stephen, said, "It seemed to them as if God and 
His Saints were dead." 

An analogy is as good as a suggestion; it becomes weari- 
some when it is pressed too far. But before leaving it, 
think for a moment how close the parallel is, and how 
strange it is that so much interest should be excited by 
a narrative of human squalor and human heroism in a 
distant continent, while greater squalor and heroism not 
less magnificent may be observed at our very doors. 

The Equatorial Forest traversed by Stanley resembles 
that Darkest England of which I have to speak, alike in 
its vast extent — both stretch, in Stanley's phrase, "as far 
as from Plymouth to Peterhead; " its monotonous dark- 
ness, its malaria and its gloom, its dwarfish de-human- 
ized inhabitants, the slavery to which they are sub- 
jected, their privations and their misery. That which 
sickens the stoutest heart, and causes many of our brav- 
est and best to fold their hands in despair, is the ap- 
parent impossibility of doing more than merely to peck 
at the outside of the endless tangle of monotonous un- 
dergrowth; to let light into it, to make a road clear 
through it, that shall not be immediately choked up by 
the ooze of the morass and the luxuriant parasitical 



AND THE WAY OUT 15 

growth of the forest — who dare hope for that? At pres- 
ent, alas, it would seem as though no one dares even to 
hope! It is the great Slough of Despond of our time. 

And what a slough it is no man can gauge who has not 
waded therein, as some of us have done, up to the very 
neck for long years. Talk about Dante's Hell, and 
all the horrors and cruelties of the torture-chamber of 
the lost! The man who walks with open eyes and with 
bleeding heart through the shambles of our civilization 
needs no such fantastic images of the poet to teach him 
horror. Often and often, when I have seen the young 
and the poor and the helpless go down before my eyes 
into the morass, trampled underfoot by beasts of prey in 
human shape that haunt these regions, it seemed as if 
God were no longer in His world, but that in His stead 
reigned a fiend, merciless as Hell, ruthless as the grave. 
Hard it is, no doubt, to read in Stanley' s pages of the slave- 
traders coldly arranging for the surprise of a village, the 
capture of the inhabitants, the massacre of those who 
resist, and the violation of all the women; but the stony 
streets of London, if they could but speak, would tell 
of tragedies as awful, of ruin as complete, of ravishments 
as horrible, as if we were in Central Africa; only the 
ghastly devastation is covered, corpse-like, with the arti- 
ficialities and hypocrisies of modern civilization. 

The lot of a negress in the Equatorial Forest is not, 
perhaps, a very happy one, but is it so very much worse 
than that of many a pretty orphan girl in our Christian 
capital? We talk about the brutalities of the dark ages, 
and we profess to shudder as we read in books of the 
shameful exaction of the rights of feudal superior. And 
yet here, beneath our very eyes, in our theatres, in our 
restaurants, and in many other places, unspeakable though 
it be but to name it, the same hideous abuse flourishes 
unchecked. A young penniless girl, if she be pretty, is 



16 IN DARKEST ENGLANI) 

often hunted from pillar to post by her employers, con- 
fronted always by the alternative — Starve or Sin. And 
when once the poor girl has consented to buy the right to 
earn her living by the sacrifice of her virtue, then she is 
treated as a slave and an outcast by the very men who 
have ruined her. Her word becomes unbelievable, her life 
an ignominy, and she is swept downward, ever downward, 
into the bottomless perdition of prostitution. But 
there, even in the lowest depths, excommunicated by 
Humanity and outcast from God, she is far nearer the 
pitying heart of the One true Saviour than all the men 
who forced her down, aye, and than all the Pharisees 
and Scribes who stand silently by while these fiendish 
wrongs are perpetrated before their very eyes. 

The blood boils with impotent rage at the sight of 
these enormities, callously inflicted, and silently borne 
by these miserable victims. Nor is it only women who 
are the victims, although their fate is the most tragic. 
Those firms which reduce sweating to a fine art, who sys- 
tematically and deliberately defraud the workman of his 
pay, who grind the faces of the poor, and who rob the 
widow and the orphan, and who for a pretense make 
great professions of public spirit and philanthropy, these 
men nowadays are sent to Parliament to make laws for 
the people. The old prophets sent them to Hell — but 
we have changed all that. They send their victims to 
Hell, and are rewarded by all that wealth can do to 
make their lives comfortable. Read the House of 
Lords' Report on the Sweating System, and ask if any 
African slave system, making due allowance for the su- 
perior civilization, and therefore sensitiveness, of the 
victims, reveals more misery. 

Darkest England, like Darkest Africa, reeks with ma- 
laria. The foul and fetid breath of our slums is almost 
as poisonous as that of the African swamp. Fever is 



AND THE WAY OUT 17 

almost as chronic there as on the Equator. Every year 
thousands of children are killed off by what is called de- 
fects of our sanitary system. They are in reality starved 
and poisoned, and all that can be said is that, in many 
cases, it is better for them that they were taken away 
from the trouble to come. 

Just as in Darkest Africa it is only a part of the evil 
and misery that comes from the superior race who invade 
the forest to enslave and massacre its miserable inhab- 
itants, so with us, much of the misery of those whose 
lot we are considering arises from their own habits. 
Drunkenness and all manner of uncleanness, moral and 
physical, abound. Have you ever watched by the bed- 
side of a man in delirium tremens? Multiply the suffer- 
ings of that one drunkard by the hundred thousand, and 
you have some idea of what scenes are being witnessed 
in all our great cities at this moment. As in Africa 
streams intersect the forest in every direction, so the gin- 
shop stands at every corner, with its River of the Water 
of Death flowing seventeen hours out of the twenty-four 
for the destruction of the people. A population sodden 
with drink, steeped in vice, eaten up by every social and 
physical malady, these are the denizens of Darkest Eng- 
land amidst whom my life has been spent, and to whose 
rescue I would now summon all that is best in the man- 
hood and womanhood of our land. 

But this book is no mere lamentation of despair. For 
Darkest England, as for Darkest Africa, there is a light 
beyond. I think I see my way out, a way by which 
these wretched ones may escape from the gloom of their 
miserable existence into a higher and happier life. Long 
wandering in the Forest of the Shadow of Death at our 
doors, has familiarized me with its horrors; but while 
the realization is a vigorous spur to action, it has never 
been so oppressive as to extinguish hope. Mr. Stanley 



18 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

never succumbed to the terrors which oppressed his fol- 
lowers. He had lived in a larger life, and knew that the 
forest, though long, was not interminable. Every step 
forward brought him nearer his destined goal, nearer to 
the light of the sun,, the clear sky, and the rolling uplands 
of the grazing land. Therefore he did not despair. The 
Equatorial Forest was, after all, a mere corner of one 
quarter of the world. In the knowledge of the light 
outside, in the confidence begotten by past experience of 
successful endeavor, he pressed forward; and when the 
i6o days' struggle was over, he and his men came out 
into a pleasant place where the land smiled with peace 
and plenty, and their hardships and hunger were forgot- 
ten in the joy of a great deliverance. 

So I venture to believe it will be with us. But the end 
is not yet. We are still in the depths of the depress- 
ing gloom. It is in no spirit of light-heartedness that 
this book is sent forth into the world as it was written 
some ten years ago. 

If this were the first time that this wail of hopeless 
misery had sounded on our ears, the matter would have 
been less serious. It is because we have heard it so 
often that the case is so desperate. The exceeding bitter 
cry of the disinherited has become to be as familiar in 
the ears of men as the dull roar of the streets or as the 
moaning of the wind through the trees. And so it rises 
unceasing, year in and 57ear out, and we are too busy or 
too idle, too indifferent or too selfish, to spare it a 
thought. Only now and then, on rare occasions, when 
some clear voice is heard giving more articulate utter- 
ance to the miseries of the miserable men, do we pause 
in the regular routine of our daily duties, and shudder 
as we realize for one brief moment what life means to 
the inmates of the Slums. But one of the grimmest 
social problems of our time should be sternly faced, not 



AND THE WAY OUT 19 

with a view to the generation of profitless emotion, but 
with a view to its solution. 

Is it not time? There is, it is true, an audacity in the 
mere suggestion that the problem is not insoluble that 
is enough to take away the breath. But can nothing be 
done? If, after full and exhaustive consideration, we come 
to the deliberate conclusion that nothing can be done, 
and that it is the inevitable and inexorable destiny of 
thousands of Englishmen to be brutalized into worse 
than beasts b}^ the condition of their environment, so 
be it. But if, on the contrary, we are unable to believe 
that this "awful slough," which engulfs the manhood 
and womanhood of generation after generation, is inca- 
pable of removal; and if the heart and intellect of man- 
kind alike revolt against the fatalism of despair, then, 
indeed, it is time, and high time, that the question were 
faced in no mere dilettante spirit, but with a resolute 
determination to make an end of the crying scandal of 
our age. 

What a satire it is upon our Christianity and our civ- 
ilization, that the existence of these colonies of heathens 
and savages in the heart of our capital should attract so 
little attention! It is no better than a ghastly mockery 
— theologians might use a stronger word — to call by the 
name of One w^ho came to seek and to save that which 
was lost those Churches which, in the midst of lost 
multitudes, either sleep in apathy or display a fitful in- 
terest in a chasuble. Why all this apparatus of tem- 
ples and meeting-houses to save men from perdition in 
a world which is to come, while never a helping hand 
is stretched out to save them from the inferno of their 
present life? Is it not time that, forgetting for a mo- 
ment their wranglings about the infinitely little or infin- 
itely obscure, they should concentrate all their energies 
gn aunitedeiKort to break this terrible perpetuity of per- 



20 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

dition, and to rescue some at least of those for whom 
they prof ess to believe their Founder came to die? 

Before venturing to define the remedy, I begin by 
describing the malady. But even when presenting the 
dreary picture of our social ills, and describing the diffi- 
culties which confront us, I speak not in despondency, 
but in hope. "I know in whom I have believed." I 
know, therefore do I speak. "Darker England" is but 
a fractional part of "Greater England." There is wealth 
enough abundantly to minister to its social regeneration 
so far as wealth can, if there be but heart enough to set 
about the work in earnest. And I hope and believe that 
the heart will not be lacking when once the problem is 
manfully faced, and the method of its solution plainly 
pointed out. 



CHAPTER II 

THE SUBMERGED TENTH 

In setting forth the difficulties which have to be grap- 
pled with, I shall endeavor in all things to understate 
rather than overstate my case. I do this for two reasons: 
first, any exaggeration would create a reaction; and sec- 
ondly, as my object is to demonstrate the practicability 
of solving the problem, I do not wish to magnify its 
dimensions. In this and in subsequent chapters I hope 
to convince those who read them that there is no over- 
straining in the representation of the facts, and nothing 
Utopian in the presentation of remedies. I appeal 
neither to hysterical emotionalists nor headlong enthusi- 
asts; but having tried to approach the examination of 
this question in a spirit of scientific investigation, I put 
forth my proposals with the view of securing the support 
and cooperation of the sober, serious, practical men and 
women who constitute the saving strength and moral 
backbone of the country. I fully admit that there is 
much that is lacking in the diagnosis of the disease, and, 
no doubt, in this first draft of the prescription there is 
much room for improvement, which will come when we 
have the light of fuller experience. But with all its 
drawbacks and defects, I do not hesitate to submit my 
proposals to the impartial judgment of all who are in- 
terested in the solution of the social question as an im- 
mediate and practical mode of dealing with this, the 
greatest problem of our time. 

21 



IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

The first duty of an investigator in approaching the 
study of any question is to eliminate all that is foreign 
to the inquiry, and to concentrate his attention upon the 
subject to be dealt with. Here I may remark that I 
make no attempt in this book to deal with Society as a 
whole. I leave to others the formulation of ambitious 
programmes for the reconstruction of our entire social 
system; not because I may not desire its reconstruc- 
tion, but because the consideration of any plans 
which are more or less visionary and incapable of realiza- 
tion for many years would stand in the way of the con- 
sideration of this Scheme for dealing with the most 
urgently pressing aspect of the question, which I hope 
may be put into operation at once. 

In taking this course I am aware that I cut myself off 
from a wide and attractive field; but as a practical man, 
dealing with sternly prosaic facts, I must confine my 
attention to that particular section of the problem which 
clamors most pressingly for a solution. Only one thing 
I*may say in passing. There is nothing in my scheme 
which will bring it into collision either with Socialists 
of the State or Socialists of the Municipality, with In- 
dividualists or Nationalists, or any of the various schools 
of thought in the great field of social economics — except- 
ing only those anti-Christian economists who hold that 
it is an offense against the doctrine of the survival of the 
fittest to try to save the weakest from going to the wall, 
and who believe that when once a man is down the su- 
preme duty of a self-regarding Society is to jump upon 
him. Such economists will naturally be disappointed 
with this book. I venture to believe that all others 
will find nothing in it to offend their favorite theories, 
but perhaps something of helpful suggestion which they 
may utilize hereafter. 
What, then, is Darkest England? For whom do we 



AND THE WAY OUT 23 

claim that "urgency" which gives their case priority over 
that of all other sections of their countrymen and coun- 
trywomen? 

I claim it for the Lost, foi* the Outcast, for the Dis- 
inherited of the World. 

These, it may be said, are but phrases. Who are the 
Lost? I reply, not in a religious, but in a social sense, 
the lost are those who have gone under, who have lost 
their foothold in Society; those to whom the prayer to 
our Heavenly Father, "Give us day by day our daily 
bread," is either unfulfilled, or only fulfilled by the 
Devil's agency: by the earnings of vice, the proceeds of 
crime, or the contribution enforced by the threat of the 
law. 

But I will be more precise. The denizens in Darkest 
England, for whom I appeal, are (i) those who, having 
no capital or income of their own, would in a month 
be dead from sheer starvation were they exclusively 
dependent upon the money earned by their own work; 
and (2) those who by their utmost exertions are unable 
to attain the regulation allowance of food which the law 
prescribes as indispensable even for the worst criminals 
in our jails. 

I sorrowfully admit that it would be Utopian in our 
present social arrangements to dream of attaining for 
every honest Englishman a jail standard of all the nec- 
essaries of life. Sometime, perhaps, we may venture to 
hope th^t every honest worker on English soil will 
always be as warmly clad, as healthily housed, and as reg- 
ularly fed as our criminal convicts — but that is not yet. 

Neither is it possible to hope for many years to come 
that human beings generally will be as well cared for 
as horses. Mr. Carlyle long ago remarked that the four- 
footed worker has already got all that this two-handed 
one is clamoring for: "There are not many horses in 



34 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Englana, able and willing to work, which have not due 
food and lodging and go about sleek-coated, satisfied in 
heart." You say it is impossible; but, said Carlyle, 
"The human brain, looking at these sleek English horses, 
refuses to believe in such impossibility for English men." 
Nevertheless, forty years have passed since Carlyle said 
that, and we seem to be no nearer the attainment of the 
four-footed standard for the two-handed worker. "Per- 
haps it might be nearer realization," growls the cynic, 
"if we could only produce men according to demand, as 
we do horses, and promptly send them to the slaughter 
house when past their prime;" which of course is not 
to be thought of. 

What then is the standard toward which we may venture 
to aim with some prospect of realization in our time.-* It 
is a very humble one, but if realized it would solve the 
worst problems of modern Society. 

It is the standard of the London Cab Horse. 

When in the streets of London a Cab Horse, weary or 
careless or stupid, trips and falls and lies stretched 
out in the midst of the traffic, there is no question of 
debating how he came to stumble before we try to get 
him on his legs again. The Cab Horse is a very 
real illustration of poor broken-down humanity; he 
usually falls down because of overwork and under- 
feeding. If you put him on his feet without altering 
his conditions, it would only be to give him another 
dose of agony; but first of all you'll have to .pick him 
up again. It may have been through overwork or under- 
feeding, or it may have been all his own fault that he 
has broken his knees and smashed the shafts, but that 
does not matter. If not for his own sake, then merely 
in order to prevent an obstruction of the traffic, all 
attention is concentrated upon the question of how we are 
to get him on his legs again. The load is taken off; the 



AND THE WAY OUT 25 

harness is unbuckled, or, if need be, cut, and everything 
is done to help him up. Then he is put in the shafts 
again and once more restored to his regular round of 
work. That is the first point. The second is that every 
Cab Horse in London has three things: a shelter for the 
night, food for its stomach, and work allotted to it by 
which it can earn its corn. 

These are the two points of the Cab Horse's Charter. 
When he is down he is helped up, and while he lives 
he has food, shelter, and work. That, although a humble 
standard, is at present absolutely unattainable by mill- 
ions — literally by millions — of our fellow-men and 
women in this country. Can the Cab Horse Charter be 
gained for human beings? I answer, yes. The Cab Horse 
standard can be attained on the Cab Horse terms. If 
you get your fallen fellow on his feet again. Docility and 
Discipline will enable you to reach the Cab Horse ideal, 
otherwise it will remain unattainable. But docility sel- 
dom fails where discipline is intelligently maintained. 
Intelligence is more frequently lacking to direct, than 
obedience to follow direction. At any»rate it is not for 
those who possess the intelligence to despair of obedi- 
ence, until they have done their part. Some, no doubt, 
like the bucking horse that will never be broken in, will 
always refuse to submit to any guidance but their own 
lawless will. They will remain either the Ishmaels or 
the Sloths of Society. But man is naturally neither an 
Ishmael nor a Sloth. 

The first question, then, which confronts us is, what 
are the dimensions of the Evil? How many of our fel- 
low-men dwell in this Darkest England? How can we 
take the census of those who have fallen below the Cab 
Horse standard to which it is our aim to elevate the 
most wretched of our countrymen? 

The moment you attempt to answer this question, you 



26 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

are confronted by the fact that the social problem has 
scarcely been studied at all scientifically. GotoMudie's 
and ask for all the books that have been written on the 
subject, and you will be surprised to find how few there 
are. There are probably more scientific books treating 
of diabetes or of gout than there are dealing with the 
great social malady which eats out the vitals of such 
numbers of our people. Of late there has been a change 
for the better. The Report of the Royal Commission on 
the Housing of the Poor, and the Report of the Com- 
mittee of the House of Lords on Sweating, represent 
an attempt at least to ascertain the facts which bear 
upon the Condition of the People question. But, after 
all, more minute, patient, intelligent observation has 
been devoted to the study of Earthworms than to the 
evolution, or rather the degradation, of the Sunken Sec- 
tion of our people. Here and there in the immense field 
individual workers make notes and occasionally emit a 
wail of despair, but where is there any attempt even so 
much as to take the first preliminary step of counting 
those who have gone under? 

One book there is, and, so far as I know at present, 
only one, which even attempts to enumerate the desti- 
tute. In his "Life and Labor in the East of London," 
Mr. Charles Booth attempts to form some kind of an 
idea as to the numbers of those with whom we have to 
deal. With a large staff of assistants, and provided 
with all the facts in possession of the School Board 
Visitors, Mr. Booth took an industrial census of East 
London. This district, which comprises Tower Ham- 
lets, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, and Hackney, contains a 
population of 908,000; that is to say, less than one-fourth 
of the population of London. 

How do his statistics work out? H we estimate the 
number of the poorest class in the rest of London as 



AND THE WAY OUT 37 

being twice as numerous as those in the Eastern District, 
instead of being thrice as numerous as they would be if 
they were calculated according to the population in, the 
same proportion, the following is the result: 

Estimate 
East London. for rest of Total. 

Paupers: London. 

Inmates of Workhouses, Asylums, 

and Hospitals 17,000 34.000 51.000 

Homeless: 

Loafers, Casuals, and some Crim- 
inals 11,000 22,000 33,000 

Starving: 

Casual earnings between iSs. per 

week and chronic want 100,000 200,000 300,000 

The Very Poor: 

Intermittent earnings iSs. to 21s. 

per week 74,000 148,000 222,000 

Small regular earnings i8s. to 21s. 
per week 129,000 258,000 387,000 

331,000 662,000 993,000 

Regular wages, artisans, etc., 22s. 

to 30s. per week 377,000 

Higher class labor, 30s. to 50s. per 

week 121,000 

Lower middle class, shopkeepers, 

clerks, etc 34.000 

Upper middle class (servant 

keepers) 45,000 

908,000 

It may be admitted that East London affords an excep 
tionally bad district from which to generalize for the 
rest of the country. Wages are higher in London than 
elsewhere, but so is rent, and the number of the home- 
less and starving is greater in the human warren at the 
East End. There are 31 millions of people in Great 
Britain, exclusive of Ireland. If destitution existed 
ever3'where in East London proportions, there would be 
31 times as many homeless and starving people as there 
are in the district round Bethnal Green. 

But let us suppose that the East London rate is 
double the average for the rest of the country. That 
would bring out the following figures: 



28 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Houseless: East London. United Kingdom. 

Loafers, Casuals, and some Criminals 11,000 165,500 

Starving: 

Casual earnings or chronic want 100,000 1,550,000 

Total Houseless and Starving 111,000 1,715,500 

In Workhouses, Asylums, etc 17,000 190,000 

128,000 1,905,500 

Of those returned as homeless and starving, 870,000 
were in receipt of outdoor relief. 

To these must be added the inmates of our prisons. 
In 1889, 174,779 persons were received in the prisons, but 
the average number in prison at any one time did not 
exceed 60,000. The figures, as given in the Prison Re- 
turns, are as follows: 

In Convict Prisons ii,66o 

In Local Prisons , 20,883 

In Reformatories 1,270 

In Industrial Schools 21,413 

Criminal Lunatics 910 

56,136 

Add to this the number of indoor paupers and lunatics 
(excluding criminals), 78,966, and we have an army of 
nearly two millions belonging to the submerged classes. 
To this there must be added, at the very least, another 
million, representing those dependent upon the criminal, 
lunatic, and other classes, not enumerated here, and the 
more or less helpless of the class immediately above 
the houseless and starving. This brings my total to 
three millions, or, to put it roughly, to one-tenth of the 
population. According to Lord Brabazon and Mr. 
Samuel Smith, "between two and three millions of our 
population are always pauperized and degraded." Mr. 
Chamberlain says there is a "population equal to that 
of the metropolis" — that is, between four and five mill- 
ions — "which has remained constantly in a state of abject 
destitution and misery." Mr. Giffen is more moderate. 
The submerged class, according to him, comprises one 
in five of manual laborers, six in one hundred of the 
population. Mr. Giffen does not add the third million 



AND THE WAY OUT 29 

which is living on the border line. Between Mr. Cham- 
berlain's four millions and a half and Mr. Giffen's 
1,800,000, I am content to take three millions as repre- 
senting the total strength of the destitute army. 

Darkest England, then, may be said to have a popula- 
tion about equal to that of Scotland. Three million 
men, v^omen, and children, a vast despairing multitude 
in a condition nominally free, but really enslaved — 
these it is whom we have to save. 

It is a large order. England emancipated her negroes 
sixty years ago, at a cost of ;^40,ooo,ooo, and has never 
ceased boasting about it since. But at our own doors, 
from "Plymouth to Peterhead," stretches this waste 
Continent of humanity — three million human beings who 
are enslaved — some of them to taskmasters as merciless 
as any West Indian overseer, all of them to destitution 
and despair. Is anything to be done with them? Can 
anything be done for them? Or is this million-headed 
mass to be regarded as offering a problem as insoluble 
as that of the London sewage, which, feculent and fester- 
ing, swings heavily up and down the basin of the Thames 
with the ebb and flow of the tide? 

This Submerged Tenth — is it, then, beyond the reach 
of the nine-tenths in the midst of whom they live, and 
around whose homes they rot and die? No doubt, in every 
large mass of human beings there will be some incurably 
diseased in morals and in body, some for whom nothing 
can be done, some of whom even the optimist must de- 
spair, and for whom he can prescribe nothing but the 
beneficently stern restraints of an asylum or a jail. 

But is not one in ten a proportion scandalously high? 
The Israelites of old set apart one tribe in twelve to min- 
ister to the Lord in the service of the Temple; but must 
we doom one in ten of "God's Englishmen" to the service 
of the great Twin Devils — Destitution and Despair? 



CHAPTER III 



THE HOMELESS 



Darkest England may be described as consisting broadly 
of three circles, one within the other. The outer and 
widest circle is inhabited by the starving and the home- 
less, but honest, Poor; the second by those who live by 
Vice; and the third and innermost region at the center 
is peopled by those who exist by Crime. The whole of 
the three circles is sodden with Drink. Darkest England 
has many more public houses than the Forest of the Aru- 
wimi has rivers, of which Mr. Stanley sometimes had to 
cross three in half an hour. The borders of this great 
lost land are not sharply defined. They are continually 
expanding or contracting. Whenever there is a period 
of depression in trade, they stretch; when prosperity 
returns, they contract. So far as individuals are con- 
cerned, there are none among the hundreds of thousands 
who live upon the outskirts of the dark forest who can 
truly say that they or their children are secure from 
being hopelessly entangled in its labyrinth. The death 
of the bread-winner, a long illness, a failure in the City, 
or any one of a thousand other causes which might be 
named, will bring within the first circle those who at 
present imagine themselves free from all danger of 
actual want. The death-rate in Darkest England is high. 
Death is the great jail-deliverer of the captives. But 
the dead are hardly in the grave before their places are 
taken by others. Some escape, but the majority, their 

30 



AND THE WAY OUT 31 

health sapped by their surroundings, become weaker and 
weaker, until at last they fall by the way, perishing 
without hope at the very doors of the palatial mansions 
which, may be, some of them helped to build. 

Some seven years ago a great outcry was made con- 
cerning the Housing of the Poor. Much was said, and 
rightly said — it could not be said too strongly — concern- 
ing the disease-breeding, manhood-destroying character 
of the tenements in which the poor herd in our large 
cities. But there is a depth below that of the dweller 
in the slums. It is that of the dweller in the streets, 
who has not even a lair in the slums which he can call 
his own. The houseless Out-of-Work is in one respect 
at least like Him of whom it was said, "Foxes have holes, 
and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath 
not where to lay His head." 

The existence of these unfortunates was somewhat 
rudely forced upon the attention of Society in 1887, when 
Trafalgar Square became the camping ground of the 
Homeless Outcasts of London. Our Shelters have done 
something, but not enough to provide for the outcasts, 
who this night and every night are walking about the 
streets, not knowing where they can find a spot on which 
to rest their weary frames. 

Here is the return of one of my Officers who was told 
off this summer to report upon the actual condition of 
the Homeless who have no roof to shelter them in all 
London: 

There are still a large number of Londoners and a con- 
siderable percentage of wanderers from the country in 
search of work, who find themselves at nightfall desti- 
tute. These now betake themselves to the seats under 
the plane trees on the Embankment. Formerly they en- 
deavored to occupy all the seats, but the lynx-eyed Met- 
ropolitan Police declined to allow any such proceedings, 
^nd the dossers, knowing the invariable kindness of the 



32 iN DARKEST ENGLAND 

City Police, made tracks for that portion of ihe Embank- 
ment which, lying east of the Temple, comes under the 
control of the Civic Fathers. Here, between the Tem- 
ple and Blackfriars, I found the poor wretches by the 
score; almost every seat contained its full complement 
of six — some men, some women — all reclining in various 
postures and nearly all fast asleep. Just as Big Ben 
strikes two, the moon, flashing across the Thames and 
lighting up the stone work of the Embankment, brings 
into relief a pitiable spectacle. Here on the stone abut- 
ments, which afford a slight protection from the biting 
wind, are scores of men Jying side by side, huddled 
together for warmth, and, of course, without any other 
covering than their ordinary clothing, which is scanty 
enough at the best. Some have laid down a few pieces 
of waste paper, by way of taking the chill off the stones, 
but the majority are too tired even for that, and the 
nifghtly toilet of most consists of first removing the 
hat, swathing the head in whatever old rag may being 
doing duty as a handkerchief, and then replacing the 
hat. 

The intelligent-looking elderly man, who was just fixing 
himself up on a seat, informed me that he frequently 
made that his night's abode. "You see," quoth he, 
"there's nowhere else so comfortable. I was here last 
night, and Monday and Tuesday as well; that's four 
nights this week. I had no money for lodgings, couldn't 
earn any, try as I might. I've had one bit of bread to- 
day, nothing else whatever, and I've earned nothing to- 
day or 3^esterday; I had threepence the day before. Gets 
my living by carrying parcels or minding horses, or odd 
jobs of that sort. You see, I haven't got my health, 
that's where it is. I used to work for the London Gen- 
eral Omnibus Company and after that for the Road Car 
Company, but I had to go to the infirmary with bronchitis, 
and couldn't get work after that. What's the good of a 
man what's got bronchitis and just left the infirmary? 
Who'll engage him, I'd like to know? Besides, it 
makes me short of breath at times, and I can't do 
much. I'm a widower; wife died long ago. I have 
one boy abroad, a sailor, but 'he's only lately started 
and can't help me. Yes! it's very fair out here of 



AND THE WAY OUT 33 

nights, seats rather hard, but a bit of waste paper makes 
it a lot softer. We have women sleep here often, and 
children, too. They're very well conducted, and there's 
seldom many rows here, you see, because everybody's 
tired out. We're too sleepy to make a row." 

Another party, a tall, dull, helpless-looking individ- 
ual, had walked up from the country; would prefer not 
to mention the place. He had hoped to have obtained a 
hospital letter at the Mansion House so as to obtain a 
truss for a bad rupture, but failing, had tried various 
other places, also in vain, winding up, minus money or 
food, on the Embankment. 

In addition to these sleepers, a considerable number 
walk about the streets up till the early hours of the morn- 
ing to hunt up some job which will bring a copper into 
the empty exchequer, and save them from actual starva- 
tion. I had some conversation with one such, a stal- 
wart youth lately discharged from the militia, and un- 
able to get work. 

"You see," said he, pitifully, "I don't know m}^ way 
about like most of the London fellows; I'm so green, 
and don't know how to pick up jobs like they do. I've 
been walking the streets almost day and night these 
two weeks and can't get work. I've got the strength, 
though I shan't have it long at this rate. I only want a 
job. This is the third night running that I've walked 
the streets all night; the only money I get is by mind- 
ing blacking-boys' boxes while they go into Lockhart's 
for their dinner. I get a penny yesterday at it, and 
twopence for carrying a parcel, and to-day I've had a 
penny. Bought a ha'porth of bread and a ha'penny mug 
of tea." 

Poor lad! probably he would soon get into thieves' 
company, and sink into the depths, for there is no other 
means of living for many like him; it is starve or steal, 
even for the young. There are gangs of lad thieves in 
the low Whitechapel lodging-houses, varying in age 
from thirteen to fifteen, who live by thieving eatables 
and other easily obtained goods from shop fronts. 

In addition to the Embankment, al fresco lodgings are 
found in the seats outside Spitalfields Church, and many 
homeless wanderers have their own little nooks and cor- 

3 



34 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

ners of resort in many sheltered yards, vans, etc., all 
over London. Two poor women I observed making their 
home in a shop door-way in Liverpool Street. Thus 
they manage in the summer; what it's like in winter-time 
is terrible to think of. In many cases it means the pau- 
per's grave, as in the case of a young woman who was 
wont to sleep in a van in Bedfordbury. Some men who 
were aware of her practice surprised her by dashing a 
bucket of water on her. The blow :o her weak system 
caused illness, and the inevitable sequel — a coroner's 
jury came to the conclusion that the water only hastened 
her death, which was due, in plain English, to starva- 
tion. 

The following are some statements taken down by the 
same Officer from twelve men whom he found sleeping on the 
Embankment on the nights of June 13th and 14th, i8go: 

No. I. "I've slept here two nights; I'm a confec- 
tioner by trade; I come from Dartford. I got turned 
off because I'm getting elderly. They can get young 
men cheaper, and I have the rheumatism so bad. I've 
earned nothing these two days; I thought I could get a 
job at Woolwich, so I walked there, but could get noth- 
ing. I found a bit of bread in the road v/rapped up in 
a bit of newspaper; that did me for yesterday. I had a 
bit of bread and butter to-day. I'm fifty-four years old. 
When it's wet we stand about all night under the arches. " 

No. 2. "Been sleeping out three weeks all but one 
night; do odd jobs, mind horses, and that sort of thing. 
Earned nothing to-day, or shouldn't be here. Have had 
a pen'orth of bread to-day; that's all. Yesterday had 
some pieces given to me at a cook-shop. Two days last 
week had nothing at all from morning till night. By 
trade I'm a feather-bed dresser, but it's gone out of 
fashion, and besides that, I've a cataract in one eye, 
and have lost the sight of it completely. I'm a widower, 
have one child, a soldier, at Dover. My last regular 
work was eight months ago, but the firm broke. Been 
doing odd jobs since." 

No. 3. "I'm a tailor; have slept here four nights 
running. Can't get work. Been out of a job three 



AND THE WAY OUT 35 

weeks. If I can muster cash I sleep at a lodging-house 
in Vere Street, Clare Market. It was very wet last 
night. I left these seats and went to Covent Garden 
Market and slept under cover. There were about thirty 
of us. The police moved us on, but we went back as 
soon as they had gone. I've had a pen'orth of bread 
and pen'orth of soup during the last two days — often 
goes without altogether. There are women sleep out 
here. They are decent people, mostly charwomen and 
such like who can't get work." 

No. 4. Elderly man; trembles visibly with excite- 
ment at mention of work; produces a card carefully 
wrapped in old newspaper, to the effect that Mr. J. R. 
is a member of the Trade Protection League. He is a 
waterside laborer; last job at that was a fortnight since. 
Has earned nothing for five days. Had a bit of bread 
this morning, but not a scrap since. Had a cup of tea 
and two slices of bread yesterday, and the same the day 
before; the deputy at a lodging-house gave it to him. 
He is fifty years old, and is still damp from sleeping 
out in the wet last night. 

No. 5. Sawyer by trade, machinery cut him out. 
Had a job, haymaking near Uxbridge. Had been on 
same job lately for a month; got 2s. 6d. a day. (Prob- 
ably spent it in drink, seems a very doubtful worker.) 
Has been odd jobbing a long time; earned 2d. to-day, 
bought a pen'orth of tea and ditto of sugar (produces 
same from pocket), but can't get any place to make the 
tea; was hoping to get to a lodging-house where he could 
borrow a teapot, but had no money. Earned nothing 
yesterday, slept at a casual ward; very poor place, get 
insufficient food, considering the labor. Six ounces of 
bread and a pint of skilly for breakfast, one ounce of 
cheese and six or seven ounces of bread for dinner (bread 
cut by guess). Tea same as breakfast, no supper. For 
this you have to break 10 cwt. of stones, or pick 4 lbs. 
of oakum. 

No. 6. Had slept out four nights running. Was a dis- 
tiller by trade; been out four months; unwilling to 
enter into details of leaving, but it was his own fault. 
(Very likely; a hea'^7, thick, stubborn, and senseless- 



36 iiN JJAKKEST ENGLAND 

looking fellow, six feet high, thick neck, strong limbs, 
evidently destitute of ability.) Does odd jobs; earned 
3d. for minding a horse, bought a cup of coffee and 
pen'orthof bread and butter. Has no money now. Slept 
under Waterloo Bridge last night. 

No. 7. Good-natured looking man; one who would 
sutler and say nothing; clothes shining with age, grease, 
and dirt; they hang on his joints as on pegs; awful 
rags! I saw him endeavoring to walk. He lifted his 
feet very slowl}^ and put them down carefully in evident 
pain. His legs are bad; been in infirmary several times 
with them. His uncle and grandfather were clergymen; 
both dead now. He was once in a good position in a 
money office, and afterwards in the London and County 
Bank for nine years. Then he went with an auctioneer 
who broke, and he was left ill, old, and without any 
trade. "A clerk's place," says he, "is never worth hav- 
ing, because there are so many of them, and once out you 
can only get another place with difficulty. I have a 
brother-in-law on the Stock Exchange, but he won't own 
me. Look at my clothes! Is it likely?" 

No. 8. Slept here four nights running. Is a builder's 
laborer by trade — that is, a handy man. Had a settled 
job for a few weeks, which expired three weeks since. 
Has earned nothing for nine days. Then helped wash 
down a S'hop front and got 2s. 6d. for it. Does anything 
he can get. Is 46 years old. Earns about 2d. or 3d. a 
day at horse-minding. A cup of tea and a bit of bread 
yesterday, and same to-day, is all he has had. 

No. 9. A plumber's laborer. (All these men who are 
somebody's "laborers" are poor samples of humanit}^, 
evidently lacking in grit, and destitute of ability to do 
any work which would mean decent wages. Judging 
from appearances, they will do nothing well. They are 
a kind of automaton, with the machinery rusty; slow, 
dull, and incapable. The man of ordinary intelligence 
leaves them in the rear. They could doubtless earn 
more even at odd jobs, but lack the energy. Of course, 
this means little food, exposure to weather, and in- 
creased incapability day by day- "From Viim that hath 
not," etc.) Out of work through slackness, does odd 



AND THE WAY OUT 37 

jobs; slept here three nights running. Is a dock laborer 
when he can get work. Has 6d. an hour; works so many 
hours, according as he is wanted. Gets 2s., 3s., or 4s. 
6d. a day. Has to work very hard for it. Casual ward 
life is also very hard, he says, for those who are not used 
to it, and there is not enough to eat. Has had to-day a 
pen'orth of bread, for minding a cab. Yesterday he 
spent 3>^d. on a breakfast, and that lasted him all day. 
Age 25. 

No. 10. Been out of work a month. Carman by 
trade. Arm withered, and cannot do w^ork properly. Has 
slept here all the week ; got an awful cold through the wet. 
Lives at odd jobs (they all do). Got sixpence yesterday 
for minding a cab and carrying a couple of parcels. 
Earned nothing to-day, but had one good meal; a lady 
gave it him. Has been walking about all day looking 
for work, and is tired out. 

No. II. Youth, aged 16. Sad case; Londoner. Works 
at odd jobs and matches selling. Has taken 3d. to-day — 
/. <;'., net profit i^d. Has five boxes still. Has slept 
here every night for a month. Before that slept in Cov- 
ent Garden Market or on door-steps. Been sleeping out 
six months, since he left Feltham Industrial School. 
Was sent there for playing truant. Has had one bit of 
bread to-day; yesterday had only some gooseberries and 
cherries — /. e., bad ones that had been throw^n away. 
Mother is alive. She "chucked him out" when he re- 
turned home on leaving Feltham because he couldn't 
fnid her money for drink. 

No. 12. Old man, age 67. Seems to take rather a 
humorous viev/ of the position. Kind of Mark Tapley. 
Says he can't say he does like it, but then he must like 
it! Ha, ha! Is a slater by trade. Been out of work 
some time; younger men naturally get the work. Gets 
a bit of bricklaying sometimes; can turn his hand to any- 
thing. Goes miles and gets nothing. Earned one and 
twopence this week at holding horses. Finds it hard, 
certainly. Used to care once, and get down-hearted, but 
that's no good; don't trouble now. Had a bit of bread 
and butter and cup of coffee to-day. Health is awful bad; 
not half the size he was; exposure and want of food is the 



38 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

cause; got wet last night, and is very stiff in conse- 
quence. Has been walking about since it was light, that 
is 3 A. M. Was so cold and wet and weak, scarcely knew 
what to do. Walked to Hyde Park, and got a little 
sleep there on a dry seat as soon as the park opened. 

These are fairly typical cases of the men who are now 
wandering homeless through the streets. That is the 
way in which the nomads of civilization are constantly 
being recruited from above. 

Such are the stories gathered at random one Midsum- 
mer night this year under the shade of the plane trees 
of the Embankment. A month later, when one of my 
staff took the census of the sleepers out of doors along 
the line of the Thames from Blackfriars to Westmin- 
ster, he found three hundred and sixty-eight persons 
sleeping in the open air. Of these, two hundred and 
seventy were on the Embankment proper, and ninety- 
eight in and about Covent Garden Market, while the 
recesses of Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges were full 
of human misery. 

This, be it remembered, was not during a season of 
bad trade. The revival of business has been attested on 
all hands, notably by the barometer of strong drink, 
England is prosperous enough to drink rum in quantities 
which appall the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but she is 
not prosperous enough to provide other shelter than the 
midnight sky for these poor outcasts on the Embankment. 

To very many even of those who live in London it 
may be news that there are so many hundreds who sleep 
out of> d.oors every night. There are comparatively few 
people stirring after midnight, and when we are snugly 
tucked into our own beds we are apt to forget the multi- 
tude outside in the rain and the storm who are shivering 
the long hours through on the hard stone seats in the 
open or upider the arches of the railway. Thes§ home- 



AND THE WAY OUT 39 

less, hungry people are, however, there, but being broken- 
spirited folk for the most part, they seldom make their 
voices audible in the ears of their neighbors. Now and 
again, however, a harsh cry from the depths is heard for 
a moment, jarring rudely upon the ear, and then all is 
still. The inarticulate classes speak as seldom as 
Balaam's ass. But they sometimes find a voice. Here for 
instance is one such case which impressed me much, it 
was reported in one of the Liverpool papers some time 
back. The speaker was haranguing a small knot of 
twenty or thirty men. 

"My lads," he commenced, with one hand in the breast 
of his ragged vest and the other, as usual, plucking 
nervously at his beard, "this kind o' work can't last for- 
ever." (Deep and earnest exclamations, "It can't! It 
sha'n't!") "Well, boys," continued the speaker, "some- 
body' 11 have to find a road out o' this. What we want 
is work, not work' us bounty, though the parish has been 
busy enough amongst us lately, God knows! What we 
want is honest work. (Hear, hear.) Now, what I pro- 
pose is that each of you gets fifty mates to join you; 
that'll make about 1,200 starving chaps — " "And then?" 
asked several very gaunt and hungry-looking men excit- 
edly. "Why, then," continued the leader. "Why, then," 
interrupted a cadaverous-looking man from the farther 
and darkest end of the cellar, "of course we'll make a 

London job of it, eh?" "No, no," hastily interposed 

my friend, and holding up his hands deprecatingly, 
"we'll go peaceably about it, chaps; we'll go in a body 
to the Town Hall, and show our poverty, and ask for 
work. We'll take the women and children with us 
too." ("Too ragged! Too starved! They can't walk 
it! ") "The women's rags is no disgrace, the staggerin' 
children'll show what we come to. Let's go a thousand 
Strong, and ask for work and bread! " 



40 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Three years ago, in London, there were some such pro- 
cessions; Church parades to the Abbey and St. Paul's, 
bivouacs in Trafalgar Square, etc. But Lazarus showed 
his rags and his sores too conspicuously for the conven- 
ience of Dives, and was summarily dealt with in the 
name of law and order. But as we have Lord Mayor's 
Days, when all the well-fed fur-clad City Fathers go in 
State Coaches through the town, why should we not have 
a Lazarus Day, in which the starving Out-of-Works, and 
the sweated, half-starved "In-Works" of London should 
crawl in their tattered raggedness, with their gaunt, 
hungry faces, and emaciated wives and children, a Pro- 
cession of Despair through the main thoroughfares, past 
the massive houses and princely palaces of luxurious 
London? 

For these men are gradually, but surely, being sucked 
down into the quicksand of modern life. They stretch 
out their grimy hands to us in vain appeal, not for char- 
ity, but for work. 

Work, work! it is always work that they ask. The 
Divine curse is to them the most blessed of benedic- 
tions. "In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy 
bread; " but alas for these forlorn sons of Adam, they fail 
to find the bread to eat, for Society has no work for them 
to do. They have not even leave to sweat. As well as 
discussing how these poor wanderers should in the second 
Adam "all be made alive," ought we not to put forth 
some effort to effect their restoration to their share in the 
heritage of labor which is theirs by right of descent from 
the first Adam? 



CHAPTER IV 

THE OUT-OF-WORKS 

There is hardly any more pathetic figure than that of 
the strong, able worker crying plaintively in the midst of 
our palaces and churches, not for charity, but for work, 
asking only to be allowed the privilege of perpetual 
hard labor, that thereby he may earn wherewith to fill 
his empty belly and silence the cry of his children for 
food. Crying for it and not getting it, seeking for labor 
as lost treasure and finding it not, until at last, all spirit 
and vigor worn out in the weary quest, the once willing 
worker becomes a broken-down drudge, sodden with 
wretchedness and despairing of all help in this world or 
in that which is to come. Our organization of industry 
certainly leaves much to be desired. A problem which 
even slave owners have solved ought not to be abandoned 
as insoluble by the Christian civilization of the Nine- 
teenth Century. 

I have already given a few life stories taken down 
from the lips of those who were found homeless on the 
Embankment which suggest somewhat of the hardships 
and the misery of the fruitless search for work. But 
what a volume of dull, squalid horror — a horror of great 
darkness gradually obscuring all the light of day from 
the life of the sufferer — might be written from the simple, 
prosaic experiences of the ragged fellows whom you meet 
every day in the street. These men, whose labor is their 
only capital, are allowed, nay compelled, to waste day after 

41 



43 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

day by the want of any means of employment, and then 
when they have seen days and weeks roll by during which 
their capital has been wasted by pounds and pounds, they 
are lectured for not saving the pence. When a rich man 
cannot employ his capital he puts it out at interest, but 
the bank for the labor capital of the poor man has yet 
to be invented. Yet it might be worth while inventing 
one. A man's labor is not only his capital, but his life. 
When it passes it returns never more. To utilize it, to 
prevent its wasteful squandering, to enable the poor 
man to bank it up for use hereafter, this surely is one 
of the most urgent tasks before civilization. 

Of all heart-breaking toil the hunt for work is surely 
the worst. Yet at any moment let a workman lose his 
present situation, and he is compelled to begin anew 
the dreary round of fruitless calls. Here is the story of 
one among thousands of the nomads, taken down from 
his own lips, of one who was driven by sheer hunger 
into crime: 

A bright Spring morning found me landed from a 
western colony. Fourteen years had passed since I em- 
barked from the same spot. They were fourteen years, 
as far as results were concerned, of non^success, and 
here I was again in my own land, a stranger, with a 
new career to carve for myself and the battle of life to 
fight over again. 

My first thought was work. Never before had I felt 
more eager for a down-right good chance to win my way 
by honest toil; but where was I to find work? With firm 
determination I started in search. One day passed with- 
out success, and another, and another, but the thought 
cheered me, "Better luck to-morrow." It has been said, 
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast." In my case 
it was to be severely tested. Days soon ran into weeks, 
and still I was on the trail patiently and hopefully. 
Courtesy and politeness so often met me in my inquiries 
for employment that I often wished they would kick me 
put, and so vary the monotony of the sickly veneer of 



AND THE WAY OUT 43 

consideration that so thinly overlaid the indifference and 
the absolute unconcern they had to my needs. A few 
cut up rough and said, "No; we don' t want you. " "Please 
don't trouble us again (this after the second visit). 
We have no vacancy; and if we had, we have plenty of 
people on hand to fill it." 

Who can express the feeling that comes over one when 
the fact begins to dawn that the search for work is a 
failure? All my hopes and prospects seemed to have 
turned out false. Helplessness, I had often heard of it, 
had often talked about it, thought I knew all about it. 
Yes! in others, but now I began to understand it for 
myself. Gradually my personal appearance faded. My 
once faultless linen became unkempt and unclean. 
Down further and further went the heels of my shoes, 
and I drifted into that distressicig condition, "shabby 
gentility." If the odds were against me before, how 
much more so now, seeing that I was too shabby even to 
coQimand attention, much less a reply to my inquiry 
for work. 

Hunger now began to do its work, and I drifted to the 
dock gates, but what chance had I among the hungry 
giants there? And so down the stream I drifted until 
"Grim Want" brought me to the last shilling, the last 
lodging, and the last meal. What shall I do? Where shall 
I go? I tried to think. Must I starve? Surely there 
must be some door still open for honest, willing en- 
deavor, but where? What can I do? "Drink," said the 
Tempter; but to drink to drunkenness needs cash, and 
oblivion by liquor demands an equivalent in the cur- 
rency. 

Starve or steal. "You must do one or the other," said 
the Tempter. But I recoiled from being a Thief. "Why 
be so particular?" says the Tempter again. "You are 
down nov/, who will trouble about you? Why trouble 
about yourself? The choice is between starving and 
stealing." And I struggled until hunger stole my judg- 
ment, and then I became a Thief. 

No one can pretend that it was an idle fear of death 
by starvation which drove this poor fellow to steal. 
Deaths from actual hunger are more common than is 



44 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

generally supposed. Last year, a man, whose name was 
never known, was walking through St. James's Park, 
when three of our Shelter men saw him suddenly stumble 
and fall. They thought he was drunk, but found he had 
fainted. They carried him to the bridge and gave him 
to the police. They took him to St. George's Hospital, 
where he died. It appeared that he had, according to 
his own tale, walj^ed up from Liverpool, and had been 
without food for five days. The doctor, however, said he 
had gone longer than that. The jury returned a ver- 
dict of "Death from Starvation." 

Without food for five days or longer! Who that has 
experienced the sinking sensation that is felt when even 
a single meal has been sacrificed may form some idea of 
what kind of slow torture killed that man! 

In 1888 the average daily number of unemployed in 
London was estimated by the Mansion House Committee 
at 20,000. This vast reservoir of unemplo5^ed labor is the 
bane of all efforts to raise the scale of living, to improve 
the condition of labor. Men hungering to death for lack 
of opportunity to earn a crust are the materials from 
which "blacklegs" are made, by whose aid the laborer 
is constantly defeated in his attempts to improve his con- 
dition. 

This is the problem that underlies all questions of 
Trades Unionism, and all Schemes for the Improvement 
of the Condition of the Industrial Army. To rear any 
stable edifice that will not perish when the first storm 
rises and the first hurricane blows, it must be built not 
upon sand, but upon a rock. And the worst of all exist- 
ing Schemes for social betterment by organization of 
the skilled workers and the like is that they are founded, 
not upon "rock," nor even upon "sand," but upon the 
bottomless bog of the stratum of the Workless. It is 
here where we must begin. The regimentation of indus- 



AND THE WAY OUT 45 

trial workers who have got regular work is not so very- 
difficult. That can be done, and is being done, by them- 
selves. The problem that we have to face is the regi- 
mentation, the organization, of those who have not got 
work, or who have only irregular work, and who from 
sheer pressure of absolute starvation are driven irresist- 
ibly into cut throat competition with their better 
employed brothers and sisters. Skin for skin, all that a 
man hath, will he give for his life; much more, then, 
will those who experimentally know not God give all 
that they might hope hereafter to have — in this world 
or in the world to come. 

There is no gainsaying the immensity of the prob- 
lem. It is appalling enough to make us despair. But 
those who do not put their trust in man alone, but in 
One who is Almighty, have no right to despair. To de- 
spair is to lose faith ; to despair is to forget God. With- 
out God we can do nothing in this frightful chaos of 
human misery. But with God we can do all things, and 
in the faith that He has made in His image all the 
children of men, w^e face even this hideous wreckage of 
humanity with a cheerful confidence that if we are but 
faithful to our own high calling He will not fail to open 
up a way of deliverance. 

I have nothing to say against those who are endeavor- 
ing to open up a way of escape without any conscious- 
ness of God's help. For them I feel only sympathy 
and compassion. In so far as they are endeavoring to 
give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and 
above all, work to the workless, they are to that extent 
endeavoring to do the will of our Father which is in 
Heaven, and woe be unto all those who say them nay! 
But to be orphaned of all sense of the Fatherhood of 
God is surely not a secret source of strength. It is in most 
cases — it would be in my own — the secret of paralysis. 



46 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

If I did not feel my Father's hand in the darkness, and 
hear His voice in the silence of the night watches bid- 
ding me put my hand to this thing, I would shrink back 
dismayed; but as it is I dare not. 

How many are there who have made similar attempts 
and have failed, and we have heard of them no more! 
Yet none of them proposed to deal with more than the mere 
fringe of the evil which, God helping me, I will try to 
face in all its immensity. Most Schemes that are put 
forward for the Improvement of the Circumstances of the 
People are either avowedly or actually limited to those 
whose condition least needs amelioration. The Uto- 
pians, the economists, and most of the philanthropists 
propound remedies, which, if adopted to-morrow, would 
only affect the aristocracy of the miserable. It is the 
thrifty, the industrious, the sober, the thoughtful who 
can take advantage of these plans. But the thrifty, the 
industrious, the sober, and the thoughtful are already 
very well able for the most part to take care of them- 
selves. No one will ever make even a visible dint on 
the morass of Squalor who does not deal with the im- 
provident, the lazy, the vicious, and the criminal. The 
Scheme of Social Salvation is not worth discussion 
which is not as wide as the Scheme of Eternal Salvation 
set forth in the Gospel. The Glad Tidings must be to 
every creature, not merely to an elect few who are to be 
saved while the mass of their fellows are predestined to 
a temporal damnation. We have had this doctrine of 
an inhuman cast-iron pseudo-political economy too long 
enthroned amongst us. It is now time to fling down the 
false idol, and proclaim a Temporal Salvation as full, 
free, and universal, and with no other limitations than 
the "Whosoever will" of the Gospel. 

To attempt to save the Lost, we must accept no lim- 
itations to human brotherhood. If the Scheme which I 



AND THE WAY OWT 4.1 

set forth in these and the following pages is not appli- 
cable to the Thief, the Harlot, the Drunkard, and the 
Sluggard, it may as well be dismissed without cere- 
mony. As Christ came to call not the saints but sin- 
ners to repentance, so the New Message of Temporal 
Salvation, of salvation from pinching poverty, from rags 
and misery, must be offered to all. They may reject it, 
of course. But we who call ourselves by the name of 
Christ are not worthy to profess to be His disciples un- 
til we have set an open door before the least and worst 
of these who are now apparently imprisoned for life in 
a horrible dungeon of misery and despair. The respon- 
sibility for its rejection must be theirs, not ours. We 
all know the prayer, "Give me neither poverty nor 
riches, feed me with food convenient for me; " and for 
every child of man on this planet, thank God, the prayer 
of Agur, the son of Jakeh, may be fulfilled. 

At present how far it is from being realized may be 
seen by anyone who will take the trouble to go down to 
the docks and see the struggle for work. Here is a 
sketch of what was found there this Summer: 

London Docks, 7.25 a. m. The three pairs of huge 
wooden doors are closed. Leaning against them, and 
standing about, there are perhaps a couple of hundred 
men. The public house opposite is full, doing a heavy 
trade. All along the road are groups of men, and from 
each direction a steady stream increases the crowd at 
the gate. 

7.30. Doors open; there is a general rush to the in- 
terior. Everybody marches about a hundred yards along 
to the iron barrier — a temporary chain affair, guarded by 
the dock police. Those men who have previously (/. e., 
night before) been engaged, show their ticket and pass 
through — about six hundred. The rest — some five hun- 
dred — stand behind ihe barrier, patrently waiting the 
chance of a job, but /ess than twenty oi these get engaged. 
They are taken on by a foreman who appears next the 



48 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

barrier and proceeds to pick his men. No sooner is the 
foreman seen than there is a wild rush to the spot and 
a sharp, mad fight to "catch his eye." The men picked 
out pass the barrier, and the excitement dies awav until 
another lot of men is wanted. 

They wait until eight o'clock strikes, which is the sig- 
nal to withdraw. The barrier is taken down, and all 
those hundreds of men wearily disperse to "find a job." 
Five hundred applicants; twenty acceptancies! No 
wonder one tired-out looking individual ejaculates, "Oh 
dear. Oh dear! Whatever shall I do?" A few hang 
about until mid-day on the slender chance of getting 
taken on then for half a day. 

Ask the men and they will tell you something like 
the following story, which gives the simple experiences 
of a dock laborer: 

R. P. said: "I was in regular work at the South 
West India Docks before the strike. We got 56.. an 
hour. Start work 8 a. m. summer and 9 a. m. winter. 
Often there would be five hundred go, and only twenty 
get taken on (that is, besides those engaged the night pre- 
vious). The foreman stood in his box, and called out the 
men he'wanted. He would know quite five hundred by 
name. It was a regular fight to get work. I have known 
nine hundred to betaken on, but there's always hundreds 
turned away. You see they get to know when ships come 
in, and when they're consequently likely to be wanted, 
and turn up then in greater numbers. I would earn 30s. a 
week sometimes, and then perhaps nothing for a fortnight. 
That's what makes it so hard. You get nothing to eat 
for a week scarcely, and then when you get taken on, you 
are so weak that you can't do it properly. I've stood in 
the crowd at the gate and had to go away without work, 
hundreds of times. Still I should go at it again if I 
could. I got tired of the little work, and went away 
into the country to get work on a farm, but couldn't get 
it, so I'm without the los. that it costs to join the Dockers' 
Union. I'm going to the country again in a day or two 
to try again. Expect to get 3s. a day perhaps. Shall 
come back to the docks again. There t's a chance of get- 
ting regular dock work, and that is, to lounge about the 



AND THE WAY OUT 49 

pubs, where the foremen go, and treat them. Then they 
will very likely take you on next day." 

R. P. was a non-Unionist. Henry F. is a Unionist, 
His history is much the same: 

"I worked at St. Katherine's Docks five months ago. 
You have to get to the gates at 6 o'clock for the first 
call. There's generally about 400 waiting. They will 
take on one to two hundred. Then at 7 o'clock there's a 
second call. Another 400 will have gathered by then, 
and another hundred or so will be taken on. Also there 
will probably be calls at nine and one o'clock. About 
the same number turn up, but there's no work for many 
hundreds of them. I was a Union man. That means 
los. a week sick pay, or 8s. a week for slight accidents; 
also some other advantages. The docks won't take men 
on now unless they are Unionists. The point is that 
there's too many men. I would often be out of w^ork a 
fortnight to three weeks at a time. Once earned ;^3 in a 
w^eek, working day and night, but then had a fortnight 
out directly after. Especially w^hen there don't happen 
to be any ships in for a few days, which means, of course, 
nothing to unload — that' s the time; there' s plenty of men 
almost starving then. They have no trade to go to, or can 
get no work at it, and they swoop down to the docks for 
work, when they had much better stay away." 

But it is not only at the dock-gates that you come upon 
these unfortunates who spend their lives in the vain hunt 
for work. Here is the story of another man whose case 
has only too many parallels: 

C. is a fine built man, standing nearly six feet. He 
has been in the Royal Artillery for eight years and held 
very good situations whilst in it. It seems that he was 
thrifty and consequently steady. He bought his discharge, 
and being an excellent cook opened a refreshment house, 
but at the end of five months he was compelled to close 
his shop on account of slackness in trade, which was 
brought about by the closing of a large factory in the 
locality. 

After having worked in Scotland and Newcastle-on-Tyne 

4 



50 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

for a few years, and through ill health having to give up 
his situation, he came to London with the hope that he 
might get something to do in his native town. He has 
had no regular employment for the past eight months. 
His wife and family are in a state of destitution, and he 
remarked, "We only had i lb. of bread between us yes- 
terday. " He is six weeks in arrears of rent, and is afraid 
that he will be ejected. The furniture which is in his 
home is not worth 3s., and the clothes of each member of 
his family are in a tattered state and hardly fit for the rag 
bag. He assured us he had tried everywhere to get em- 
ployment and would be willing to take anything. His 
characters are very good indeed. 

Now, it may seem a preposterous dream that any ar- 
rangement can be devised by which it may be possible, 
under all circumstances, to provide food, clothes, and 
shelter for all these Out-of-Works without any loss of 
self-respect; but I am convinced that it can be done, 
providing only that they are willing to Work, and, God 
helping me, if the means are forthcoming, I mean to try 
to do it; how, and where, and when, I will explain in 
subsequent chapters. 

All that I need say here is, that so long as a man or 
woman is willing to submit to the discipline indispensa- 
ble in every campaign against any formidable foe, there 
appears to me nothing impossible about this ideal ; and 
the great element of hope before us is that the majority 
are, beyond all gainsaying, eager for work. Most of them 
now do more exhausting work in seeking for employment 
than the regular toilers do in their workshops, and do 
it, too, under the darkness of hope deferred which maketh 
the heart sick. 



CHAPTER V 

ON THE VERGE OF THE ABYSS 

There is, unfortunately, no need for me to attempt to set 
< ut, however imperfectly, any statement of the evil case 
of the sufferers whom we wish to help. For years past 
the Press has been filled with echoes of the "Bitter Cry 
of Outcast London," with pictures of "Horrible Glas- 
gow," and the like. We ha:ve had several volumes de- 
scribing "How the Poor Live," and I may therefore as- 
sume that all my readers are more or less cognizant of the 
main outlines of "Darkest England." My slum officers 
are living in the midst of it; their reports are before 
me, and one day I may publish some more detailed ac- 
count of the actual facts of the social condition of the 
Sunken Millions. But not now. All that must be taken 
as read. I only glance at the subject in order to bring 
into clear relief the salient points of our new enterprise. 

I have spoken of the houseless poor. Each of these 
represents a point in the scale of human suffering below 
that of those who have still contrived to keep a shelter 
over their heads. A home is a home, be it ever so low; 
and the desperate tenacity with which the poor will 
cling to the last wretched semblance of one is very 
touching. There are vile dens, fever-haunted and stench- 
ful crowded courts, where the return of summer is dreaded 
because it means the unloosing of myriads of vermin 
which render night unbearable, which, nevertheless, are 
regarded at this moment as havens of rest by their hard- 

51 



53 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

working occupants. They can scarcely be said to be 
furnished. A chair, a mattress, and a few miserable 
sticks constitute all the furniture of the single room in 
which they have to sleep, and breed, and die; but they 
cling ^o it as a drowning man to a half-submerged raft. 
Every week they contrive by pinching and scheming to 
raise the rent, for with them it is pay or go; and they 
struggle to meet the collector as the sailor nerves him- 
self to avoid being sucked under by the foaming wave. 
If at any time work fails or sickness comes they are lia- 
ble to drop helplessly into the ranks of the homeless. It 
is bad for a single man to have to confront the struggle 
for life in the streets and Casual Wards. But how much 
more terrible must it be for the married man with his 
wife and children to be turned out into the streets. So 
long as the family has a lair into which it can creep at 
night, he keeps his footing; but when he loses that soli- 
tary foothold, then arrives the time, if there be such a 
thing as Christian compassion, for the helping hand to 
be held out to save him from the vortex that sucks him 
downward — aye, downward to the hopeless under-strata 
of crime and despair. 

The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and the stranger 
intermeddleth not therewith." But now and then out of 
the depths there sounds a bitter wail as of some strong 
swimmer in his agony as he is drawn under by the cur- 
rent. A short time ago a respectable man, a chemist in 
Holloway, fifty years of age, driven hard to the wall, 
tried to end it all by cutting his throat. His wife also 
cut her throat, and at the same time they gave strychnine 
to their only child. The effort failed, and they were 
placed on trial for attempted murder. In the Court a 
letter was read which the poor wretch had written be- 
fore attempting his life: 

My Dearest George: Twelve months have I now 



AND THE WAY OUT 53 

passed of a most miserable and struggling existence, and 
I really cannot stand it any more. I am completely worn 
out, and relations who could assist me won't do any more, 
for such was uncle's last intimation. Never mind; he 
can't take his money and comfort with him, and in all 
probability will find himself in the same boat as^ my- 
self. He never inquires whether I am starving or not; 
;^3 — a mere flea-bite to him — would have put us straight, 
and with his security and good interest might have 
obtained me a good situation long ago. I can face pov- 
erty and degradation no longer, and would sooner die 
than go to the workhouse, whatever may be the awful 
consequences of the steps we have taken. We have, God 
forgive us, taken our darling Arty with us out of pure 
love and affection, so that the darling should never be 
cuffed about, or reminded or taunted with his heart- 
broken parents' crime. My poor wife has done her best 
at needle-work, washing, house-minding, etc., in fact, 
anything and everything that would bring in a shilling; 
but it would only keep us in semi-starvation. I have 
now done six wrecks' traveling from morning till night, 
and not received one farthing for it. If that is rot 
enough to drive you mad — wickedly mad — I don't know 
what is. No bright prospect anywhere; no ray of hope. 
May God Almighty forgive us for this heinous sin, 
and have mercy on our sinful souls, is the prayer of your 
miserable, broken-hearted, but loving brother, Arthur. 
We have now done everything that we can possibly think 
of to avert this wicked proceeding, but can discover no 
ray of hope. Fervent prayer has availed us nothing; 
our lot is cast, and we must abide by it. It must be 
God's will or He would have ordained it differently. 
Dearest George, I am exceedingly sorr}^ to leave j^ou all, 
but I am mad — thoroughl}^ mad. You, dear, must try 
and forget us, and, if possible, forgive us; for I do not 
consider it our own fault we have not succeeded. If 
you could get ;^3 for our bed it will pa}^ our rent, and 
our scanty furniture may fetch enough to bury us in a 
cheap way. Don't grieve over us or follow us, for we 
shall not be worthy of such respect. Our clergyman 
has never called on us or given us the least consolation, 
though I : Jled on him a month ago. He is paid to 



54 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

preach, and there he considers his responsibility ends, 
the rich excepted. We have only yourself and a very fev^ 
others who care one pin v^^hat becomes of us; but you 
must try and forgive us, is the last fervent prayer of your 
devotedly fond and affectionate but broken-hearted and 
persecuted brother. (Signed) R. A. O . 

That is an authentic human document — a transcript 
from the life of one among thousands who go down inar- 
ticulate into the depths. They die and make no sign, or, 
worse still, they continue to exist, carrying about with 
them, year after year, the bitter ashes of a life from 
which the furnace of misfortune has burned away all joy, 
and hope, and strength. Who is there who has not been 
confronted by many despairing ones, who come, as Rich- 
ard O went to the clergyman, crying for help, and 

how seldom have we been able to give it them? It is 
unjust, no doubt, for them to blame the clergy and the 
comfortable well-to-do — for what can they do but preach 

and offer good advice? To assist all the Richard O s 

by direct financial advance would drag even Rothschild 
into the gutter. And what else can be done? Yet some- 
thing else must be done if Christianity is not to be a 
mockery to perishing men. 

Here is another case, a very common case, which illus- 
trates how the Army of Despair is recruited: 

Mr. T — , Margaret Place, Gascoign Place, Bethnal 
Green, is a bootmaker by trade. Is a good hand, and 
has earned three shillings and sixpence to four shillings 
and sixpence a day. He was taken ill last Christmas, 
and went to the London Hospital; was there three 
months. A week after he had gone Mrs. T — had rheu- 
matic fever, and was taken to Bethnal Green Infirmary, 
where she renjained about three months. Directly after 
they had been taken ill, their furniture was seized for 
the three weeks' rent which was owing. Consequently, 
on becoming convalescent, they were homeless. They 
came out about the same time. He went out to a lodg- 



AND THE WAY OUT 55 

ing-house for a night or two, until she came out. He 
then had twopence, and she had sixpence, which a nurse 
had given her. They went to a lodging-house together, 
but the society there was dreadful. Next day he had a 
day's work, and got two shillings and sixpence, and on 
the strength of this they took a furnished room at ten- 
pence per day (payable nightly). His work lasted a few 
weeks, when he was again taken ill, lost his job, and 
spent all their money. Pawned a shirt and apron for a 
shilling; spent that, too. At last pawned their tools 
for three shillings, which got them a few days' food 
and lodging. He is now minus tools and cannot work at 
his own job, and does anything he can. Spent their 
last twopence on a pen'orth each of tea and sugar. In 
two days they had a slice of bread and butter each; 
that's all. They are both very weak through want of 
food. 

"Let things alone," the laws of supply and demand, 
and all the rest of the excuses by which thost who stand 
on firm ground salve their consciences when they leave 
their brother to sink, how do they look when we apply 
them to the actual loss of life at sea? Does "Let things 
alone" man the lifeboat? Will the inexorable laws of 
political economy save the shipwrecked sailor from the 
boiling surf? They often enough are responsible for his 
disaster. Cofhn ships are a direct result of the wretched 
policy of non-interference with the legitimate operations 
of commerce; but no desire to make it pay created the 
National Lifeboat Institution; no law of supply and de- 
mand actuates the volunteers who risk their lives to 
bring the shipwrecked to shore. 

What we have to do is to apply the same principle 
to society. We want a Social Lifeboat Institution, a 
Social Lifeboat Brigade, to snatch from the abyss those 
who, if left to themselves, will perish as miserably as 
the crew of a ship that founders in mid-ocean. 

The moment that we take in hand this work we shall 



56 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

be compelled to turn our attention seriously to the 
question whether prevention is not better than cure. 
It is easier and cheaper, and in every way better, to pre- 
vent the loss of home than to have to re-create that home. 
It is better to keep a man out of the mire than to let him 
fall in first and then risk the chance of plucking him uot. 
Any Scheme, therefore, that attempts to deal with the 
reclamation of the lost must tend to develop into an 
endless variety of ameliorative measures, of some of 
which I shall have somewhat to say hereafter. I only 
mention the subject here in order that no one may say 
I am blind to the necessity of going further and adopt- 
ing wider plans of operation than those which I put for- 
ward in this book. The renovation of our Social System 
is a work so vast that no one of us, nor all of us put to- 
gether, can define all the measures that will have to be 
taken before we attain even the Cab-Horse Ideal of exist- 
ence for our children and children's children. All that 
we can do is to attack, in a serious, practical spirit, the 
worst and most pressing evils, knowing that if we do 
our duty we obey the voice of God. He is the Captain 
of our Salvation. If we but follow where He leads we 
shall not want for marching orders, nor need we imagine 
that He will narrow the field of operations. 

I am laboring under no delusions as to the possibility 
of inaugurating the Millennium by any social specific. 
In the struggle of life the weakest will go to the wall, 
and there are so many weak. The fittest in tooth and 
claw will survive. All that we can do is to soften the 
lot of the unfit and make their suffering less horrible 
than it is at present. No amount of assistance will give 
a jelly-fish a backbone. No outside propping will make 
some men stand erect. All material help from without 
is useful only in so far as it develops moral strength 
within. And some men seem to have lost even the very 



AND THE WAY OUT 57 

faculty of self-help. There is an immense lack of com- 
mon sense and of vital energy on the part of multitiidcc. 

It is against Stupidity in every shape and form that '^'e 
have to wage our eternal battle. But how can we wonder 
at the want of sense on the part of those who h'Ave had 
no advantages, when we see such plentiful absence of 
that commodity on the part of those who have had all 
the advantages? 

How can we marvel if, after leaving generation after 
generation to grow up uneducated and underfed, there 
should be developed a heredity of incapacity, and that 
thousands of dull-witted people should be born into the 
world, disinherited before their birth of their share in 
the average intelligence of mankind? 

Besides those who are thus hereditarily wanting in 
the qualities necessary to enable them to hold their own, 
there are the weak, the disabled, the aged, and the un- 
skilled; worse than all, there is the want of character. 
Those who have the best of reputation, if they lose 
their foothold on the ladder, find it difficult enough to 
regain their place. What, then, can men and women 
who have no character do? When a master has the 
choice of a hundred honest men, is it reasonable to expect 
that he will select a poor fellow with tarnished reputa- 
tion? 

All this is true, and it is one of the things that makes 
the problem almost insoluble. And insoluble it is, I 
am absolutely convinced, unless it is possible to bring 
new moral life into the soul of these people. This 
should be the first object of every social reformer, whose 
work will only last if it is built on the solid foundation 
of a new birth to cry, "You must be born again." 

To get a man soundly saved it is not enough to put on 
him a pair of new breeches, to give him regular work, or 
even to give him a University education. These things 



58 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

are all outside a man, and if the inside remains un- 
changed you have wasted your labor. You must in some 
way or other graft upon the man's nature a new nature 
which has in it the element of the divine. All that I 
propose in this book is governed by that principle. 

The difference between the method which seeks to re- 
generate the man by ameliorating his circumstances and 
that which ameliorates his circumstances in order to get 
at the regeneration of his heart, is the difference be- 
tween the method of the gardener who grafts a Ribstone 
Pippin on a crab-apple tree and one who merely ties 
apples with string upon the branches of the crab. To 
change the nature of the individual, to get at the heart, 
to save his soul, is the only real, lasting method of doing 
him any good. In many modern schemes of social re- 
generation it is forgotten that "it takes a soul to move 
a body, e'en to a cleaner sty; " and at the risk of being 
misunderstood and misrepresented, I must assert in the 
most unqualified way that it is primarily and mainly for 
the sake of saving the soul that I seek the salvation of 
the body. 

But what is the use of preaching the Gospel to men 
whose whole attention is concentrated upon a mad, des- 
perate struggle to keep themselves alive? You might 
as well give a tract to a shipwrecked sailor who is 
battling with the surf which has drowned his comrades 
and threatens to drown him. He will not listen to you. 
Nay, he cannot hear you any more than a man whose 
head is under water can listen to a sermon. The first 
thing to do is to get him at least a footing on firm 
ground, and to give him room to live. Then you may 
have a chance. At present you have none. And you 
will have all the better opportunity to find a way 
to his heart, if he comes to know that it was you who 
pulled him out of the horrible pit and the miry clay in 
which he was sinking to perditi' 



CHAPTER VI 

THE VICIOUS 

There are many vices and seven deadly sins. But of 
late years many of the seven have contrived to pass 
themselves off as virtues. Avarice, for instance, and 
Pride, when re-baptized thrift and self-respect, have be- 
come the guardian angels of Christian civilization; and 
as for Envy, it is the corner-stone upon which much of 
our competitive system is founded. There are still two 
vices which are fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to re- 
main undisguised, not even concealing from themselves 
the fact that they are vices and not virtues. One is 
drunkenness; the other fornication. The viciousness of 
these vices is so little disguised, even from those who 
habitually practice them, that there will be a protest 
against merely describing one of them by the right Bib- 
lical name. Why not say prostitution? For this rea- 
son: prostitution is a word applied to only one half of 
the vice, and that the most pitiable. Fornication hits 
both sinners alike. Prostitution applies only to the 
woman. 

When, however, we cease to regard this vice from the 
point of view of morality and religion, and look at it 
solely as a factor in the social problem, the word pros- 
titution is less objectionable. For the social burden of 
this vice is borne almost entirely by women. The male 
sinner does not, by the mere fact of his sin, find himself 
in a worse position in obtaining employment, in finding 

59 



60 IN DALKEST ENGLAND 

a home, or even in securing a wife. His wrong-doing only 
hits him in his purse, or, perhaps, in his health. His 
incontinence, excepting so far as it relates to the wom- 
. an whose degradation it necessitates, does not add to 
the number of those for whom society has to provide. 
It is an immense addition to the infamy of this vice in 
man that its consequences have to be borne almost ex- 
clusively by women. 

The difficulty of dealing with drunkards and harlots is 
almost insurmountable. Were it not that I utterly re- 
pudiate as a fundamental denial of the essential princi- 
ple of the Christian religion the popular pseudo-scien- 
tific doctrine that any man or woman is past saving by 
the grace of Gcd and the power of the Holy Spirit, I 
would sometimes be disposed to despair when contem- 
plating these victims of the Devil. The doctrine of 
Heredity and the suggestion of Irresponsibility come per- 
ilously near re-establishing, on scientific bases, the 
awful dogma of Reprobation which has cast so terrible a 
shadow over the Christian Church. For thousands upon 
thousands of these poor wretches are, as Bishop South 
truly said, "not so much born into this world as damned 
into it." The bastard of a harlot, born in a brothel, 
suckled on gin, and familiar from earliest infancy with 
all the bestialities of debauch, violated before she is 
twelve, and driven out in.to the streets by her mother a 
year or two later, what chance is there for such a girl in 
this world — I say nothing about the next? Yet such a 
case is not exceptional. There are many such, differing in 
detail, but in essentials the same. And with boys it is 
almost as bad. There are thousands who were begotten 
when both parents were besotted with drink, whose 
mothers saturated themselves with alcohol every day of 
their pregnancy, who may be said to have sucked in a 
taste for strong drink with their mother's milk, and who 



AND THE WAY OUT 61 

were surrounded from childhood with opportunities 
and incitements to drink. How can we marvel that 
the constitution thus disposed to intemperance finds 
the stimulus of drink indispensable? Even if they make a 
stand against it, the increasing pressure of exhaustion 
and of scanty food drives them back to the cup. Of 
these poor wretches, born slaves of the bottle, predes- 
tined to drunkenness from their mother's womb, there 
are — who can say how many? Yet they are all men; all 
with what the Russian peasants call "a spark of God" in 
them, which can never be wholly obscured and destroyed 
while life exists, and if any social scheme is to be com- 
prehensive and practical it must deal with these men. 
It must provide for the drunkard and the harlot as it 
provides for the improvident and the out-of-work. But 
who is sufficient for these things? 

^ I will take the question of the drunkard, for the drink 
difficulty lies at the root of everything. Nine-tenths of 
our poverty, squalor, vice, and crime spring from this 
poisonous tap-root. Many of our social evils, which 
overshadow the land like so many upas trees, would 
dwindle av/ay and die if they were not constantly watered 
with strong drink. There is universal agreement on 
that point; in fact, the agreement as to the evils of in- 
temperance is almost as universal as the conviction that 
politicians will do nothing practical to interfere with them. 
In Ireland, Mr. Justice Fitzgerald says that intemperance 
leads to nineteen-twentieths of the crime in that coun- 
try, but no one proposes a Coercion Act to deal with that 
evil. In England, the judges all say the same thing. 
Of course it is a mistake to assume that a murder, for 
instance, would never be committed by sober men, be- 
cause murderers in most cases prime themselves for their 
deadly work by a glass of Dutch courage. But the facil- 
ity of securing a reinforcement of passion undoubtedly 



63 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

tends to render always dangerous, and sometimes irre- 
sistible, the temptation to violate the laws of God and 
man. 

Mere lectures against the evil habits are, however, of 
no avail. We have to recognize that the gin-palace, 
like many other evils, although a poisonous, is still a 
natural outgrowth of our social conditions. The tap- 
room in many cases is the poor man's only parlor. Many 
a man takes to beer, not from the love of beer, but from 
a natural craving for the light, warmth, company, and 
comfort which is thrown in along with the beer, and 
which he cannot get excepting by buying beer. Reform- 
ers will never get rid of the drink-shop until they can 
outbid it in the subsidiary attractions which it offers 
to its customers. Then, again, let us never forget that 
the temptation to drink is strongest when want is 
sharpest and misery the most acute. A well-fed man is 
not driven to drink by the craving that torments the 
hungry; and the comfortable do not crave for the boon 
of forgetfulness. Gin is the only Leihe of the miser- 
able. The foul and poisoned air of the dens in which 
thousands live predisposes to a longing for stimulant. 
Fresh air, with its oxygen and its ozone, being lacking, 
a man supplies the want with spirit. After a time the 
longing for drink becomes a mania. Life seems as in- 
supportable without alcohol as without food. It is a 
disease often inherited, always developed by indulgence, 
but as clearly a disease as ophthalmia or stone. 

All this should predispose us to charity and sympa- 
thy. While recognizing that the primary responsibility 
must always rest upon the individual, we may fairly in- 
sist that society, which, by its habits, its customs, and 
its laws, has greased the slope down which these poor 
creatures slide to perdition, shall seriously take in hand 
heir salvation. 



AND THE WAY OUT 63 

How many are there who are more or less under the 
dominion of strong drink? Statistics abound, but they 
seldom tell us what we want to know. We know how 
many public-houses there are in the land, and how many 
arrests for drunkenness the police make in a year; but 
beyond that we know little. Everyone knows that for 
one man who is arrested for drunkenness there are at 
least ten — and often twenty — who go home intoxicated. 
In London, for instance, there are 14,000 drink-shops, 
and every year 20,000 persons are arrested for drunken- 
ness. But who can for a moment believe that there are 
only 20,000, more or less, habitual drunkards in London? 
By habitual drunkard I do not mean one who is always 
drunk, but one who is so much under the dominion of 
the evil habit that he cannot be depended upon not to 
get drunk whenever the opportunity offers 

In the United Kingdom there are 190,000 public- 
houses, and every year there are 200,000 arrests for 
drunkenness. Of course, several of these arrests refer to 
the same person, who is locked up again and again. 
Were this not so, if we allowed six drunkards to each 
house as an average, or five habitual drunkards for one 
arrested for drunkenness, we should arrive at a total of 
a million adults who are more or less prisoners of the 
publican — as a matter of fact, Isaac Hoyle gives i in 
12 of the adult population. This may be an excessive 
estimate, but, if we take a quarter of a million, we shall 
not be accused of exaggeration. Of these some are in 
the last stages of confirmed dipsomania; others are but 
over the verge; but the procession tends ever downwards. 
The loss which the maintenance of this huge standing 
army of a half of a million of men who are more or less 
always besotted, men whose intemperance impairs their 
working power, consumes their earnings, and renders 
their homes wretched, has long been a familiar theme of 



64 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

the platform. But what can be done for them? Total 
abstinence is no doubt admirable, but how are you to 
get them to be totally abstinent? When a man is drown- 
ing in mid-ocean the one thing that is needful, no doubt, 
is that he should plant his feet firmly on terra firma. 
But how is he to get there? It is just what he cannot 
do. And so it is with the drunkards. If they are to be 
rescued there must be something more done for them 
than at present is attempted, unless, of course, we de- 
cide definitely to allow the iron laws of nature to 
work themselves out in their destruction. In that case 
it might be more merciful to facilitate the slow work- 
ings of natural law. There is no need of establishing 
a lethal chamber for drunkards like that into which the 
lost dogs of London are driven, to die in peaceful sleep 
under the influence of carbonic oxide. The State would 
only need to go a little further than it goes at present 
in the way of supplying poison to the community. If, 
in addition to planting a flaming gin-palace at each 
corner, free to all who enter, it were to supply free gin 
to all who have attained a certain recognized standard of 
inebriety, delirium tremens would soon reduce our 
drunken population to manageable proportions. I can 
imagine a cynical millionaire of the scientific philan- 
thropic school making a clearance of all the drunkards 
in a district by the simple expedient of an unlimited 
allowance of alcohol. But that for us is out of the 
question. The problem of what to do with our quarter 
of a million drunkards remains to be solved, and few 
more difficult questions confront the social reformer. 

The question of the harlots is, however, quite as in- 
soluble by the ordinary methods. For these unfortu- 
nates no one who looks below the surface can fail to 
have the deepest sympathy. Some there are, no doubt, 
perhaps many, who — whether from inherited passion or 



AND THE WAY OUT 65 

from evil education — have deliberately embarked upon a 
life of vice, but with the majority it is not so. Even 
those who deliberately and of free choice adopt the pro- 
fession of a prostitute, do so under the stress of tempta- 
tions which few moralists seem to realize. Terrible as 
the fact is, there is no doubt it is a fact that there is no 
industrial career in which for a short time a beauti- 
ful girl can make as much money with as little trouble 
as the profession of a courtesan. The case recentl}^ tried 
at the Lewes assizes, in which the wife of an officer in 
the army admitted that while living as a kept mistress 
she had received as much as ;^4,ooo a year, was no 
doubt very exceptional. Even the most successful advent- 
uresses seldom make the income of a Cabinet Minister. 
But take women in professions and in businesses all 
round, and the number of young women who have 
received ^500 in one year for the sale of their person 
is larger than the number of women of all ages who make 
a similar sum by honest industry. It is only the very 
few who draw these gilded prizes, and they only do it 
for a very short time. But it is the few prizes in every 
profession which allure the multitude, who think little 
of the many blanks. And speaking broadly, vice offers 
to every good-looking girl during the first bloom of her 
youth and beauty more money than she can earn by 
labor in any field of industry open to her sex. The penalty 
exacted afterwards is disease, degradation, and death, but 
these things at first are hidden from her sight. 

The profession of a prostitute is the only career in 
which the maximum income is paid to the newest 
apprentice. It is the one calling in which at the begin- 
ning the only exertion is that of self-indulgnce; all the 
prizes are at the commencement. It is the ever new em- 
bodiment of the old fable of the sale of the soul to the 
Devil. The tempter offers wealth, comfort, excitement, 
5 



66 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

but in return the victim must sell her soul, nor does the 
other party forget to exact his due to the uttermost far- 
thing. Human nature, however, is short-sighted. Giddy 
girls, chafing against the restraints of uncongenial indus- 
try, see the glittering bait continually before them. 
They are told that if they will but "do as others do," 
they will make more in a night, if they are lucky, than 
they can make in a week at their sewing; and who can 
wonder that in many cases the irrevocable step is taken 
before they realize that it is irrevocable, and that they 
have bartered away the future of their lives for the pal- 
try chance of a year's ill-gotten gains? 

Of the severity of the punishment there can be no 
question. If the premium is high at the beginning, the 
penalty is terrible at the close. And this penalty is 
exacted equally from those who have deliberately said, 
"Evil, be thou my God," and from those who have been 
decoyed, snared, trapped into the life which is a living 
death. When you see a girl on the street you can never 
say without inquiry whether she is one of the most-to- 
be condemned or the most-to-be pitied of her sex. Many 
of them find themselves where they are because of a too 
trusting disposition, confidence born of innocence being 
often the unsuspecting ally of the procuress and seducer. 
Others are as much the innocent victims of crime as if 
they had been stabbed or maimed by the dagger of the 
assassin. The records of our Rescue Homes abound 
with life stories, some of which we have been able to 
verify to the letter, which prove only too conclusively 
the existence of numbers of innocent victims whose entry 
upon this dismal life can in no way be attributed to any 
act of their own will. Many are orphans or the chil- 
dren of depraved mothers, whose one idea of a daughter 
is to make money out of her prostitution. Here are a 
few cases on our register: 



AND THE WAY OUT ' 67 

E. C, aged i8, a soldier's child, born on the sea. Her 
father died, and her mother, a thoroughly depraved 
woman, assisted to secure her daughter's prostitution. 

P. S., aged 20, illegitimate child. Went to consult a 
doctor one time about some ailment. The doctor abused 
his position and took advantage of his patient, and when 
she complained, gave her ^£"4 as compensation. When 
that was spent, having lost her character, she came on 
the town. We looked the doctor up, and he fled. 

E. A., aged 17, was left an orphan very early in life, 
and adopted by her godfather, who himself was the 
means of her ruin at 'the age of 10. 

A girl in her teens lived with her mother in the "Dust- 
hole," the lowest part of Woolwich. This woman forced 
her out upon the streets, and profited by her prostitu- 
tion up to the very night of her confinement. The 
mother had all the time been the receiver of the gains. 

E., neither father nor mother, was taken care of by a 
grandmother till, at an early age, accounted old enough. 
Married a soldier; but shortly before the birth of her first 
child, found that her deceiver had a wife and family in a 
distant part of the country, and she was soon left 
friendless and alone. She sought an asylum in the 
Workhouse for a few weeks, after which she vainly tried 
to get honest employment. Failing in that, and being 
on the very verge of starvation, she entered a lodging- 
house in Westminster and "did as other girls. " Here our 
lieutenant found and persuaded her to leave and enter 
one of our Homes, where she soon gave abundant proof 
of her conversion by a thoroughly changed life. She is 
now a faithful and trusted servant in a clergyman's 
family. 

A girl was some time ago discharged from a city hos- 
pital after an illness. She was homeless and friendless, 
an orphan, and obliged to work for her living. Walk- 
ing down the street and wondering what she should do 
next, she met a girl, who came up to her in a most 
friendly fashion and speedily won her confidence. 

"Discharged ill, and nowhere to go, are you?" said her 
new friend. Well, come home to my mother's; she will 
lodge you, and we'll go to work together when you are 
quite strong.' 



68 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

The girl consented gladly, but found herself conducted 
to the very lowest part of Woolwich and ushered into a 
brothel ; there was no mother in the case. She was 
hoaxed, and powerless to resist. Her protestations were 
too late to save her, and having had her character forced 
from her she became hopeless, and staid on to live the 
life of her false friend. 

There is no need for me to go into the details of the 
way in which men and women, whose whole livelihood 
depends upon their success in disarming the suspicions 
of their victims and luring them to their doom, contrive 
to overcome the reluctance of the young girl without 
parents, friends, or helpers to enter their toils. What 
fraud fails to accomplish, a little force succeeds in 
effecting; and a girl who has been guilty of nothing but 
imprudence finds herself an outcast for life. The very 
innocence of a girl tells against her. A woman of the 
world, once entrapped, would have all her wits about her 
to extricate herself from the position in which she found 
herself. A perfectly virtuous girl is often so overcome 
with shame and horror that there seems nothing in life 
worth struggling for. She accepts her doom without fur- 
ther struggle, and treads the long and torturing path- 
way of "the streets" to the grave. 

"Judge not, that ye be not judged," is a saying that 
applies most appropriately of all to these unfortunates. 
Many of them would have escaped their evil fate had 
they been less innocent. They are where they are be- 
cause they loved too utterly to calculate consequences, 
and trusted too absolutely to dare to suspect evil. And 
others are there because of the false education which 
confounds ignorance with virtue, and throws our young 
people into the midst of a great city, with all its excite- 
ments and all its temptations, without more preparation 
or warning than if they were going to live in the Garden 
pf Eden. 



AND THE WAY OUT 



C9 



Whatever sin they have committed, a terrible penalty is 
exacted. While the man who caused their ruin passes 
as a respectable member of society, to whom virtuous 
matrons gladly marry — if he is rich — their maiden daugh- 
ters, they are crushed beneath the millstone of social ex- 
communication. 

Here let me quote from a report made to me by the 
head of our Rescue Homes as to the actual life of these 
unfortunates : 

The following hundred cases are taken as they come 
from our Rescue Register. The statements are those of 
the girls themselves. They are certainly frank, and it 
will be noticed that only two out of the hundred allege 
that they took to the life out of poverty: 

Cause of Fall. 

Drink 14 

Seduction 33 

Wilful choico 24 

Bad company 27 

Poverty 2 



Condition when Applying. 

Rags ■ 25 

Destitution 27 

Decently dressed 48 



Out of these girls twenty-three have been in prison. 

The girls suffer so much that the shortness of their 
miserable life is the only redeeming feature. Whether 
we look at the wretchedness of the life itself; their per- 
petual intoxicaion; the cruel treatment to which they are 
subjected by their task-masters and mistresses or bullies; 
the hopelessness, suffering, and despair induced by their 
circumstances and surroundings; the depths of misery, 
degradation, and poverty to which they eventually de- 
scend; or their treatment in sickness, their friendless- 
ness and loneliness in death, it must be admitted that 
a more dismal lot seldom falls to the fate of a human 
being. I will take each of these in turn. 

Health. — This 1 ife induces insanity, rheumatism, con- 
sumption, and all forms of syphilis. Rheumatism and 
gout are the commonest of these evils. Some were quite 
crippled by both — j-oung though they were. Consump- 
tion sows its seeds broadcast. The life is a hot-bed 
for the development of any constitutional and hereditary 
germs of the disease. We have found girls in Piccadilly 



70 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

at midnight who are continually prostrated by hemor- 
rhage, yet who have no other way of life open, so struggle 
on in this awful manner between whiles. 

Drink. — This is an inevitable part of the business. 
All confess that they could never lead their miserable 
lives if it were not for its influence. A girl who was 
educated at college and who had a home in which was 
every comfort, but who when ruined had fallen even to 
the depth of Woolwich "Dusthole, " exclaimed to us in- 
dignantly, "Do you think I could ever, ever do this if it 
weren't for the drink? I always have to be in drink if I 
want to sin." No girl has ever come into our Homes 
fro7n street-life but has been more or less a prey to 
drink. 

Cruel Treatment. — The devotion of these women to 
their bullies is as remarkable as the brutality of their 
bullies is abominable. Probably the primary cause of 
the fall of numberless girls of the lower class is their 
great aspiration to the dignity of wifehood; they are 
never "somebody" until they are married, and will link 
themselves to any creature no matter how debased, in 
the hope of being ultimately married by him. This 
consideration, in addition to their helpless condition 
when once character has gone, makes them suffer cruel- 
ties which they would never otherwise endure from 
the men with whom large numbers of them live. 

One case in illustration of this is that of a girl who 
was once a respectable servant, the daughter of a police 
sergeant. She was ruined, and shame led her to leave 
home. At length she drifted to Woolwich, where she 
came across a man who persuaded her to live with him, 
and for a considerable length of time she kept him, al- 
though his conduct to her was brutal in the extreme. 
The girl living in the next room to her has frequently 
heard him knock her head against the wall, and pound 
it when he was out of temper, through her gains of pros- 
titution being less than usual. He lavished upon her 
every sort of cruelty and abuse, and at length she grew so 
wretched and was reduced to so dreadful a plight that 
she ceased to attract. At this he became furious and 
pawned all her clothing but one thin garment of rags. 
The week before her first confinement be kicked her 



AND THE WAY OUT 71 

black and blue from neck to knees, and she was carried 
to the police station in a pool of blood, but she was 
so loyal to the wretch that she refused to appear against 
him. 

She was going to drown herself in desperation, when 
our Rescue Officers spoke to her, wrapped their own 
shawl around her shivering shoulders, took her home 
with them and cared for her. The baby was born dead 
— a tiny, shapeless mass. 

This state of things is all too common. 

Hopelessness — Surroundings. — The state of hopeless- 
ness and despair in which these girls live continually, 
makes them reckless of consequences, and large numbers 
commit suicide who are never heard of. A Wfest End 
policeman assured us that the number of prostitute 
suicides was terribly in advance of anything guessed at 
by the public. 

Depths to which They Sink. — There is scarcely a lower 
class of girls to be found than the girls of "Woolwich 
Dusthole" — where one of our Rescue Slum Homes is es- 
tablished. The women living and following their dread- 
ful business in this neighborhood are so degraded that 
even abandoned men will refuse to accompany them 
home. Soldiers are forbidden to enter the place, or to 
go down the street, on pain of twenty-five days' imprison- 
ment; pickets are stationed at either end to prevent this. 
The streets are much cleaner than many of the rooms we 
have seen. 

One public-house there is shut up three or four times in 
a day, sometimes, for fear of losing the license through the 
terrible brawls which take place within. A policeman 
never goes down this street alone at night — one having 
died not long ago from injuries received there — but our 
two lasses go unharmed and loved at all hours, spending 
every other night always upon the streets. 

The girls sink to the "Dusthole" after coming down 
several grades. There is but one on record who came 
there with beautiful clothes, and this poor girl, when last 
seen by the officers, was a pauper in the workhouse in- 
firmary in a wretched condition. 

The lowest class of all is the girls who stand at the 



72 _ IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

pier-head — these sell themselves literally for a bare 
crust of bread, and sleep in the streets. 

Filth and vermin abound to an extent to which no one 
who has not seen it can have any idea. 

The "Dusthole" is only one, alas, of many similar dis- 
tricts m this highly civilized land. 

Sickness — Friendlessness — Death. — In hospitals it is 
a known fact that these girls are not treated at all like 
other cases; they inspire disgust, and are most fre- 
quently discharged before being really cured. 

Scorned by their relations, and ashamed to make 
their case known even to those who would help them, 
unable longer to struggle out on the streets to earn the 
bread of shame, there are girls lying in many a dark 
hole in this big city positively rotting away, and main- 
tained by their old companions on the streets. 

Many are totally friendless, utterly cast out and 
left to perish by relatives and friends. One of this 
class came to us, sickened and died, and we buried her, 
being her only followers to the grave. 

It is a sad story, but one that must not be forgotten, 
for these women constitute a large standing army whose 
numbers no one can calculate. All estimates that I have 
seem purely imaginary. The ordinary figure given fof 
London is from 60,000 to 80,000. This may be true if 
it is meant to include all habitually unchaste women. 
It is a monstrous exaggeration if it is meant to apply to 
those who make their living solely and habitually by 
prostitution. These figures, however, only confuse. We 
shall have to deal with hundreds every month, whatever 
estimate we take. How utterly unprepared society is 
for any such systematic reformation may be .seen from 
the fact that even now at our Homes we are unable to 
take in all the girls who apply. They cannot escape, 
even if they would, for want of funds whereby to provide 
them a way of release. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE CRIMINALS 



One very important section of the denizens of Darkest 
England are the criminals and the semi-criminals. They 
are more or less predatory, and are at present shepherded 
by the police and punished by the jailer. Their num- 
bers cannot be ascertained with very great precision, but 
the following figures are taken from the prison returns 
of 1889: 

The criminal classes of Great Britain, in round fig- 
ures, sum up a total of no less than 90,000 persons, 
made up as follows: 

Convict prisons contain ii,66o persons. 

Local " " 201883 

Reformatories for children convicted of crime 1,270 

Industrial schools for vagrant and refractory children. . . 21,413 

Criminal lunatics under restraint 910 

Known thieves at large 14, 747 

Known receivers of stolen goods 1,121 

Suspected persons 17,042 



Total 89,006 

The above does not include the great army of known 
prostitutes, nor the keepers and owners of brothels and 
disorderly houses, as to whose numbers Government is 
rigidl}^ silent. 

These figures are, however, misleading. They only 
represent the criminals actually in jail on a given day. 

The average jail population in England and Wales, 
excluding the convict establishments, was, in 1889, 
15,119; but the total number actually sentenced and im- 
prisoned in local prisons was, 53,000, of whom 25,000 
only came on iirst-term sentences; 76,300 of them had 

73 



74 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

been convicted at least lo times. But even if we sup- 
pose that the criminal class numbers no more than 
90,000, of whom only 35,000 persons are at large, it is 
still a large enough section of humanity to compel at- 
tention; 90,000 criminals represents a wreckage whose 
cost to the community is very imperfectly estimated 
when we add up the cost of the prisons, even if we add 
to them the whole cost of the police. The police have 
so many other duties besides the shepherding of crim- 
inals, that it is unfair to saddle the latter with the whole 
of the cost of the constabulary. The cost of prosecution 
and maintenance of criminals and the expense of the 
police involves an annual outlay of ;£'4,437,ooo. This, 
however, is small compared with the tax and toll which 
this predatory horde inflicts upon the community on 
which it is quartered. To the loss caused by the actual 
picking and stealing must be added that of the unpro- 
ductive labor of nearly 65,000 adults. Dependent upon 
these criminal adults must be at least twice as many 
women and children; so that it is probably an under- 
estimate to say that this list of criminals and semi- 
criminals represents a population of at least 200,000, 
who all live more or less at the expense of society. 

Every year, in the Metropolitan district alone, 66,100 
persons are arrested, of whom 444 are arrested for trying 
to commit suicide — life having become too unbearable a 
burden. This immense population is partially, no doubt, 
bred to prison, the same as other people are bred to the 
army and to the bar. The hereditary criminal is by no 
means confined to India, although it is only in that 
country that they have the engaging simplicity to de- 
scribe themselves frankly in the census returns. But it 
is recruited constantly from the outside. In many cases 
this is due to sheer starvation. Fathers of the Church 
have laid down the law that a man who is in peril of 



AND THE WAY OUT 75 

death from hunger is entitled to take bread wherever he 
can find it to keep body and soul together. That propo- 
sition is not embodied in our jurisprudence. Absolute 
despair drives many a man into the ranks of the criminal 
class, who would never have fallen into the category of 
criminal convicts if adequate provision had been made^ 
for the rescue of those drifting to doom. When once 
he has fallen, circumstances seem to combine to keep 
him there. As wounded and sickly stags are gored to 
death by their fellows, so the unfortunate vvho bears the 
prison brand is hunted from pillar to post, until he de- 
spairs of ever regaining his position, and oscillates 
between one prison and another for the rest of his days. 
I gave in a preceding page an account of how a man, 
after trying in vain to get work, fell before the tempta- 
tion to steal in order to escape starvation. Here is the 
sequel of that man's story. After he had stolen he ran 
away, and thus describes his experiences: 

"To fly was easy. To get away from the scene re- 
quired very little ingenuity, but the getting away from 
one suffering brought another. A straight look from a 
stranger, a quick step behind me, sent a chill through 
ever}^ nerve. The cravings of hunger had been satisfied, 
but it was the cravings of conscience that were clamor- 
ous now. It was easy to get away from the earthly con- 
sequences of sin, but from the fact — never. And yet it 
was the compulsion of circumstances that made me a 
criminal. It was neither from inward viciousness or 
choice, and how bitterly did I cast reproach on society 
for allowing such an alternative to offer itself — 'to Steal 
or Starve;' but there was another alternative that here 
offered itself — either give myself up, or go on with the 
life of crime. I chose the former. I had traveled over 
loo miles to get away from the scene of my theft, and I 
now find myself outside the station-house at a place 
where I had put in my boyhood days. " 

"How many times when a lad, with wondering eyes, 
and a heart stirred with childhood's pure sympathy, I 



76 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

had watched the poor waifs from time to time led within 
its doors. It was my turn now. I entered the charge- 
room, and with business-like precision disclosed my 
errand, viz: that I wished to surrender myself for having 
committed a felony. My story was doubted. Question 
followed question, and confirmation must be waited. 
*Why had I surrendered?' 'I was a rum 'un.' 'Cracked.' 
'More fool than rogue.' 'He will be sorry when he 
mounts the wheel,' These and such like remarks were 
handed round concerning me. An hour passed by. An 
inspector enters, and announces the receipt of a tele- 
gram: 'It is all right. You can put him down.' And 
turning to me, he said, 'They will send for you on Mon- 
day;' and then I passed into the inner ward, and a cell. 
The door closed with a harsh, grating clang, and I was 
left to face the most clamorous accuser of all — my own 
interior self. 

"Monday morning the door opened, and a complacent 
detective stood before me. Who can tell the feeling as 
the handcuffs closed round my wrists, and we started for 
town. As again the charge was entered, and the passing 
of another night in the cell, then the morning of the 
day arrived. The gruff, harsh 'Come on!' of the jailer 
roused me, and the next moment I found myself in the 
prison van, gazing through the crevices of the floor', 
watching the stones flying as it were from beneath our 
feet. Soon the court-house was reached, and, hustled 
into a common cell, I found myself amongst a crowd of 
boys and men, all bound for the 'dock.' One by one the 
names are called, and the crowd is gradually thinning 
down, when the announcement of my own name fell on 
my startled ear, and I found m3^self stumbling up the 
stairs, and finding myself in daylight and the 'dock.' 
What a terrible ordeal it was! The ceremony was brief 
enough: 'Have you anything to say?' 'Don't interrupt 
his Worship, prisoner !' 'Give over talking! ' 'A month's 
hard labor.' This is about all I heard, or at any rate 
realized, until a vigorous push landed me into the pres- 
ence of the officer who booked the sentence, and then off 
I went to jail. I need not linger over the formalities 
of the reception. A nightmare seemed to have settled 
upon me as I passed into the interior of the correctional. 



AND THE WAY OUT 77 

"I resigned my name, and I seemed to die to myself 
for henceforth — 332 B disclosed my identity to myself 
and others. 

"Through all the weeks that followed I was like one 
m a dream. Meal-times, resting hours, as did every 
other thing, came with clock-like precision. At times I 
thought my mind had gone— so dull, so callous, so weary 
appeared the organs of the brain. The harsh orders of 
the jailers; the droning of the chaplain in the chapel; 
the inquiries of the chief warder or the governor in their 
periodical visits — all seemed so meaningless. 

"As the day of my liberation drew near, the horrid con- 
viction that circumstances would perhaps compel me to 
return to prison haunted me, and so helpless did I feel 
at the prospects that awaited me outside, that I dreaded 
release, which seemed but the facing of an unsympa- 
thetic world. The day arrived, and, strange as it may 
sound, it was with regret that I left my cell. It had 
become my home, and no home waited me outside. 

"How utterly crushed I felt; feelings of companionship 
had gone out to my unfortunate fellow-prisoners, whom 
I had seen daily, but the sound of whose voices I had 
never heard, whilst outside friendships were dead, and 
companionships were forever broken, and I felt as an 
outcast of society, with the mark of 'jail-bird' upon 
me, that I must cover my face, and stand aside and cry 
'unclean.' Such were my feelings. 

"The morning of discharge came, and I am once more 
on the streets, my scanty means scarcely sufHcient tor 
two days' least needs. Could I brace myself to make 
another honest endeavor to start afresh? Try, indeed, I 
did. I fell back upon my antecedents, and tried to cut 
the dark passage out of my life, but straight came the 
questions to me at each application for employment, 
'What have you been doing lately?' 'Where have you 
been living?' If I evaded the question it caused doubt; 
if I answered, the only answer I could give was 'in 
jail,' and that settled my chances. 

"What a comedy, after all, it appeared! I remember 
the last words of the chaplain before leaving the prison, 
cold and precise in their officialism: 'Mind you never 
come back here again, young man.' And now, as though 



78 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

in response to my earnest effort to keep from going to 
prison, society, by its actions, cried out, 'Go back to 
jail. There are honest men enough to do our work with- 
out such as you/ 

"Imagine, if you can, my condition. At the end of a 
few days, black despair had wrapped itself around every 
faculty of mind and body. Then followed several days 
and nights with scarcely a bit of food or a resting- 
place. I prowled the streets like a dog, with this differ- 
ence, that the dog. has the chance of helping himself, 
and I had not. I tried to forecast how long starvation's 
fingers would be in closing round the throat they already 
gripped; so indifferent was I alike to man or God, as I 
waited for the end." 

In this dire extremity the writer found his way to one 
of our Shelters, and there found God and friends and 
hope, and once more got his feet on to the ladder which 
leads upward from the black gulf of starvation to compe- 
tence and character, and usefulness and heaven. 

As he was then, however, there are hundreds — nay, 
thousands — now. Who will give these men a helping 
hand? What is to be done with them? Would it not be 
more merciful to kill them off at once instead of sternly 
crushing them out of all semblance of honest manhood? 
Society recoils from such a short cut. Her virtuous 
scruples reminds me of the subterfuge by which English 
law evaded the veto on torture. Torture was forbidden, 
but the custom of placing an obstinate witness under a 
press and slowly crushing him within a hairbreadth of 
death was legalized and practiced. So it is to-day. 
When the criminal comes out of jail the whole world is 
often but a press whose punishment is sharp and cruel 
indeed. Nor can the victim escape even if he opens his 
mouth and speaks. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE CHILDREN OF THE LOST 

Whatever may be thought of the possibility of doing 
anything with the adults, it is universally admitted 
that there is hope for the children. "1 regard the exist- 
ing generation as lost," said a leading Liberal states- 
man. "Nothing can be done with men and women who 
have grown up under the present demoralizing condi- 
tions. My only hope is that the children may have a 
better chance. Education will do much." But unfor- 
tunately the demoralizing circumstances of the children 
are not being improved — are, indeed, rather, in many 
respects, being made worse. The deterioration of our 
population in large towns is one of the most undisputed 
facts of social economics. The country is the breeding- 
ground of healthy citizens. But for the constant influx 
of Countrydom, Cockneydom would long ere this have 
perished. But unfortunately the country is being 
depopulated. The towns, London especially, are being 
gorged with undigested and indigestible masses of labor, 
and, as the result, the children suffer grievously. 

The town-bred child is at a thousand disadvantages 
compared with his cousin in the country. But every 
year there are more town-bred children and fewer cousins 
in the country. To rear healthy children you want first 
a home; secondly, milk; thirdly, fresh air; and fourthly, 
exercise under the green trees and blue sky. All these 
things every country laborer's child possesses, or used 

79 



80 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

to possess; for the shadow of the City life lies now 
upon the fields, and even in the remotest rural district the 
laborer who tends the cows is often denied the milk 
which his children need. The regular demand of the 
great towns forestalls the claims of the laboring 
kind. 

Tea and slops and beer take the place of milk, and the 
bone and sinew of the next generation are sapped from 
the cradle. But the country child, if he has nothing but 
skim milk, and only a little of that, has at least plenty 
of exercise in the fresh air. He has healthy human re- 
lations with his neighbors. He is looked after, and in 
some sort of fashion brought into contact with the life 
of the hall, the vicarage, and the farm. He lives a 
natural life amid the birds and trees and growing crops 
and the animals of the fields. He is not a mere human 
ant, crawling on the granite pavement of a great urban 
ants' nest, with an unnaturally developed nervous system 
and a sickly constitution. 

But, it will be said, the child of to-day has the ines- 
timable advantage of Education. No; he has not. Ed- 
ucated the children are not. They are pressed through 
"standards," which exact a certain acquaintance with A B 
C and pothooks and figures; but educated they are not in 
the sense of the development of their latent capacities 
so as to make them capable for the discharge of their 
duties in life. The new generation can read, no doubt; 
otherwise, where would be the sale of "Sixteen-String 
Jack," "Dick Turpin," and the like? But take the girls. 
Who can pretend that the girls whom our schools are 
now turning out are half as well educated for the work 
of life as their grandmothers were at the same age? 
How many of all these mothers of the future know how 
to bake a loaf or wash their clothes? Except minding 
the baby — a task that cannot be evaded — what domestic 



AND THE WAY OUT 81 

training have they received to qualify them for being in 
the future the mothers of babies themselves? 

And even the schooling, such as it is, at what an ex- 
pense is it often imparted! The rakings of the human 
cesspool are brought into the school-room and mixed up 
with your children. Your little ones, who never heard a 
loul word and who are not only innocent, but ignorant, 
of all the horrors of vice and sin, sit for hours side by 
side with little ones whose parents are habitually 
drunk, and play with others whose ideas of merriment 
are gained from the familiar spectacle of the nightly de- 
bauch by which their mothers earn the family bread. It 
is good, no doubt, to learn the ABC, but it is not so good 
that in acquiring these indispensable rudiments, your 
children should also acquire the vocabulary of the harlot 
and the corner boy. I speak only of what I know, and of 
that which has been brought home to me as a matter of 
repeated complaint by my Officers, when I say that the 
obscenity of the talk of many of the ch-ildren of some of 
our public schools could hardly be outdone even in Sodom 
and Gomorrah. Childish innocence is very beautiful ; but 
the bloom is soon destroyed, and it is a cruel awakening 
for a mother to discover that her tenderly nurtured boy, 
or her carefully guarded daughter, has been initiated by 
a companion into the mysteries of abomination that are 
concealed in the phrase — a house of ill-fame. 

The home is largely destroyed where the mother fol- 
lows the father into the factory, and where the hours of 
labor are so long that they have no time to see their 
children. The omnibus drivers of London, for instance, 
what time have they for discharging the daily duties of 
parentage to their little ones? How can a man who is 
on his omnibus from fourteen to sixteen hours a day 
have time to be a father to his children in any sense of 
the word? He has hardly a chance to see them except 
6 



82 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

when they are asleep. Even a Sabbath, that blessed in- 
stitution which is one of the sheet anchors of human ex- 
istence, is encroached upon. Many of the new industries 
which have been started or developed since I was a boy 
ignore man's need of one day's rest in seven. The rail- 
way, the post-office, the tramway all compel some of 
their employes to be content with less than the divinely 
appointed minimum of leisure. In the country darkness 
restores the laboring father to his little ones. In the 
town gas and the electric light enables the employer to 
rob the children of the whole of their father's waking 
hours, and in some cases he takes the mother's also. 
Under some of the conditions of modern industry, chil- 
dren are not so much born into a home as they are 
spawned into the world like fish, with the results which 
we see. 

The decline of natural affection follows inevitably from 
the substitution of the fish relationship for that of the 
human. A father who never dandles his child on his 
knee cannot have a very keen sense of the responsibili- 
ties of paternity. In the rush and pressure of our com- 
petitive City life, thousands of men have not time to 
be fathers. Sires, yes; fathers, no. It will take a good 
deal of schoolmaster to make up for that change. If 
this be the case, even with the children constantly em- 
ployed, it can be imagined what kind of a home life is pos- 
sessed by the children of the tramp, the odd jobber, the 
thief, and the harlot. For all these people have chil- 
dren, although they have no homes in which to rear them. 
Not a bird in all the woods or fields but prepares some 
kind of a nest in which to hatch and rear its young, even 
if it be but a hole in the sand or a few crossed sticks 
in the bush. But how many young ones amongst our 
people are hatched before any nest is ready to receive 
them? 



AND THE WAY OUT 83 

Think of the multitudes of children born in our work- 
houses, children of whom it may be said "they are con- 
ceived in sin and shapen in iniquity," and, as a punish- 
ment of the sins of the parents, branded from birth as 
bastards, worse than fatherless, homeless, and friendless, 
"damned into an evil world," in which even those who 
have all the advantages of a good parentage and a care- 
ful training find it hard enough to make their way. 
Sometimes, it is true, the passionate love of the deserted 
mother for the child which has been the visible symbol 
and the terrible result of her undoing stands between 
the little one and all its enemies. But think how often 
the mother regards the advent of her child with loathing 
and horror; how the discovery that she is about to be- 
come a mother affects her like a nightmare; and how 
nothing but the dread of the hangman's rope keeps her 
from strangling the babe on the very hour of its birth. 
What chances has such a child? And there are many such. 

In a certain country that I will not name there exists 
a scientifically arranged system of infanticide cloaked 
under the garb of philanthropy. Gigantic foundling 
establishments exist in its principal cities, where every 
comfort and scientific improvement is provided for the 
deserted children, with the result that one-half of them 
die. The mothers are spared the crime. The State 
assumes the responsibility. We do something like that 
here, but our foundling asylums are the Street, the 
Workhouse, and the Grave. When an English Judge 
tells us, as Mr. Justice Wills did the other day, that 
there were any number of parents who would kill their 
children for a few pounds' insurance money, we can form 
some idea of the horrors of the existence into which 
many of the children of this highly favored land are 
ushered at their birth. 

The overcrowded homes of the poor compels the chil- 



84 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

dren to witness everything. Sexual morality often comes 
to have no meaning to them. Incest is so familiar as 
hardly to call for remark. The bitter poverty of the 
poor compels them to leave their children half fed. 
There are few more grotesque pictures in the history of 
civilization than that of the compulsory attendance of 
children at school, faint with hunger because they had 
no breakfast, and not sure whether they would even secure 
a dry crust for dinner when their morning's quantum of 
education had been duly imparted. Children thus hun- 
gered, thus housed, and thus left to grow up as best 
they can without being fathered or mothered, are not, 
educate them as you will, exactly the most promising ma- 
terial for the making of the future citizens and rulers of 
the Empire. 

What, then, is the ground for hope that if we leave 
things alone the new generation will be better than their 
elders? To me it seems that the truth is rather the other 
way. The lawlessness of our lads, the increased license 
of our girls, the general shiftlessness from the home- 
making point of view of the product of our factories and 
schools, are far from reassuring. Our young people have 
never learned to obey. The fighting gangs of hal-f grown 
lads in Lisson Grove, and the scuttlers of Manchester, 
are ugly symptoms of a social condition that will not 
grow better by being left alone. 

It is the home that has been destroyed, and with the 
home the home-like virtues. It is the dis-homed multi- 
tude, nomadic, hungry, that is rearing an undisciplined 
population, cursed from birth with hereditary weakness 
of body and hereditary faults of character. It is idle to 
hope to mend matters by taking the children and bun- 
dling them up in barracks. A child brought up in an in- 
stitution is too often only half-human, having never 
known a mother's love and a father's care. To men and 



AND THE WAY OUT . 85 

women who are without homes, children must be more 
or less of an incumbrance. Their advent is regarded 
with impatience, and often it is averted by crime. 
The unwelcome little stranger is badly cared for, badly 
fed, and allowed every chance to die. Nothing is worth 
doing to increase his chances of living that does not 
Reconstitute the Home. But between us and that ideal 
how vast is the gulf ! It will have to be bridged, how- 
ever, if anything practical is to be done. 



CHAPTER IX 

IS THERE NO HELP? 

It may be said by those who have followed me to this 
point, that while it is quite true that there are many 
who are out of work, and not less true that there are 
many who sleep on the Embankment and elsewhere, the 
law has provided a remedy, or if not a remedy, at least 
a method, of dealing with these sufferers which is suffi- 
cient. The Secretary of the Charity Organization Society 
assured one of my Officers, who went to inquire for his 
opinion on the subject, "that no further machinery was 
necessary. All that was needed in this direction they 
already had in working order, and to create any further 
machinery would do more harm than good." 

Now, what is the existing machinery by which Society, 
whether through the organization of the State or by in- 
dividual endeavor, attempts to deal with the submerged 
residuum? I had intended at one time to have devoted 
considerable space to the description of the existing 
agencies, together with certain observations which have 
been forcibly impressed upon my mind as to their fail- 
ure and its cause. The necessity, hovv^ever, of subordi- 
nating everything to the supreme purpose of this book, 
which is to endeavor to show how light can be let into 
the heart of Darkest England, compels me to pass rapidly 
over this "-department of the subject, merely glancing 
as I go at the well-meaning, but more or less abortive, 
attempts to cope with this great and appalling evil. 

86 



AND THE WAY OUT 87 

The first place must naturally be given to the admin- 
istration of the Poor Law. Legally the State accepts 
the responsibility of providing food and shelter for every 
man, woman, or child who is utterly destitute. This 
responsibility it, however, practically shirks by the im- 
position of conditions on the claimants of relief that are 
hateful and repulsive, if not impossible. As to the 
method of Poor Law administration in dealing with in- 
mates of workhouses or in the distribution of outdoor 
relief, I say nothing. Both of these raise great questions 
which lie . outside my immediate purpose. All that I 
need to do is to indicate the limitations — it may be the 
necessary limitations — under which the Poor Law oper- 
ates. No Englishman can come upon the rates so long 
as he has anything whatever left to call his own. When 
long-continued destitution has been carried on to the 
bitter end, when piece by piece every article of domestic 
furniture has been sold or pawned, when all efforts to 
procure employment have failed, and when you have 
nothing left except the clothes in which you stand, then 
you can present yourself before the relieving officer and 
secure your lodging in the workhouse, the administration 
of which varies infinitely according to the disposition 
of the Board of Guardians under whose control it happens 
to be. 

If, however, you have not sunk to such despair as to 
be willing to barter your liberty for the sake of food, 
clothing, and shelter in the Workhouse, but are only 
temporarily out of employment, seeking work, then you 
go to the Casual Ward. There you are taken in, and 
provided for on the principle of making it as disagreeable 
as possible for yourself, in order to deter you from again 
accepting the hospitality of the rates — and of course in 
defense of this a good deal can said by the Political 
Economist. But what seems utterly indefensible is the 



88 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

careful precautions which are taken to render it impos- 
sible for the unemployed Casual to resume promptly after 
his night's rest the search for work. Under the existing 
regulations, if you are compelled to seek refuge on 
Monday night in the Casual Ward, you are bound to 
remain there at least till Wednesday morning. 

The theory of the system is this, that individuals 
casually poor and out of work, being destitute and with- 
out shelter, may upon application receive shelter for the 
night, supper, and a breakfast, and in return for this, 
shall perform a task of work, not necessarily in repay- 
ment for the relief received, but simply as a test of their 
willingness to work for their living. The work given is 
the same as that given to felons in jail — oakum-picking 
and stone-breaking. 

The work, too, is excessive in proportion to what is 
received. Four pounds of oakum is a great task to an 
expert and an old hand. To a novice it can only be ac- 
complished with the greatest difficulty, if indeed it can 
be done at all. It is even in excess of the amount de- 
manded from a criminal in jail. The stone-breaking 
test is monstrous. Half a ton of stone from any man in 
return for partially supplying the cravings of hunger is 
an outrage which, if we read of as having occurred in 
Russia or Siberia, would find Exeter Hall crowded with 
an indignant audience, and Hyde Park filled with strong 
oratory. But because this system exists at our own 
doors, very little notice is taken of it. These tasks are 
expected from all comers, starved, ill-clad, half-fed 
creatures from the streets, foot-sore and worn out, and 
yet unless it is done, the alternative is the magistrate 
and the jail. The old system was bad enough, which 
demanded the picking of one pound of oakum. As soon 
as this task was accomplished, which generally kept 
them till the middle of next day, it was thus rendered 



AND THE WAY OUT 89 

impossible for them to seek work, and they were forced 
to spend another night in the ward. The Local Govern- 
ment Board, however, stepped in, and the Casual was 
ordered to be detained for the whole day and the second 
night, the amount of labor required from him being 
increased four-fold. 

Under the present system, therefore, the penalty for 
seeking sh-elter from the streets is a whole day and two 
nights, with an almost impossible task, which failing to 
do, the victim is liable to be dragged before a magis- 
trate and committed to jail as a rogue and vagabond, 
while in the Casual Ward their treatment is practically 
that of a criminal. They sleep in a cell with an apart- 
ment at the back, in which the work is done, receiving 
at night half a pound of gruel and eight ounces of bread, 
and next morning the same for breakfast, with half a 
pound of oakum and stones to occupy himself for a day. 

The beds are mostly of the plank type, the coverings 
scant, the comfort nil. Be it remembered that this is 
the treatment meted out to those who are supposed to be 
Casual poor, in temporary difficulty, walking from place 
to place seeking some employment. 

The treatment of the women is as follows: Each 
Casual has to stay in the Casual Wards two nights and 
one day, during which time they have to pick 2 lbs. of 
oakum or go to the wash-tub and work out the time there. 
While at the wash-tub they are allowed to wash their 
own clothes, but not otherwise. If seen more than once 
in the same Casual Ward, they are detained three days 
by order of the inspector, each time seen, or if sleeping 
twice in the same month, the master of the ward has 
power to detain them three days. There are four 
inspectors who visit different Casual Wards; and if the 
Casual is seen by any of the inspectors (who in turn 
visit all the Casual Wards) at any of the wards they 



90 ■ IN DARKEST E-NGLAND 

have previously visited, they are detained three days in 
each one. The inspector, who is a male person, visits 
the wards at all unexpected hours, even visiting while 
the females are in bed. The beds are in some wards 
eomposed of straw and two rugs, in others cocoanut fibre 
and two rugs. The Casuals rise at 5.45 a. m. and go to 
bed at 7 p. m. If they do not fini3h picking their 
oakum before 7 p. m., they stay up till they do. If a 
Casual does not come to the ward before 12.30, mid- 
night, they keep them one day e-xtra. The way in which 
this operates, however, can be best understood by the 
following statements, made by those who have been in 
Casual Wards, and who can, therefore, speak from 
experience as to how the system affects the individual:. 

J. C. knows Casual Wards pretty well. Has been 
in St. Giles, Whitechapel, St. George's, Paddington, 
Marylebone, Mile End. They vary a little in detail, 
but as a rule the doors open at 6; you walk in; they tell 
you what the work is, and that if you fail to do it, you 
will be liable to imprisonment. Then you bathe. Some 
places the water is dirty. Three persons as a rule wash 
in one water. At Whitechapel (been there three times) 
it has always been dirty; also at St. George's. I had 
no bath at Mile End; they were short of water. If you 
complain they take no notice. You then tie your 
clothes in a bundle, and they give you a nightshirt. At 
most places they serve supper to the men, who have to 
go to bed and eat it there. Some beds are in cells; 
some in large rooms. You get up at 6 a. m. and do the 
task. The amount of stone-breaking is too much; and 
the oakum-picking is also heavy. The food differs. At 
St. Giles, the gruel left over-night is boiled up for 
breakfast, and is consequently sour; the bread is puffy, 
full of holes, and don't weigh the regulation amount. 
Dinner is only 8 ounces of bread and i^ ounces of 
cheese, and if that's short, how can anybody do their 
work? They will give you water to drink if you ring 
the cell bell for it — that is, they will tell you to wait, 
and bring it in about half an hour. There are a good 



AND THE WAY OtJt 01 

lot of "moochers" go to Casual Wards, but there are 
large numbers of men who only want work. 

J. D. ; age 25; Londoner; can't get work, tried hard; 
leen refused work several times on account of having no 
settled residence; looks suspicious, they think, to have 
"no home." Seems a decent, willing man. Had two 
pennyworth of soup this morning, which has lasted all 
day. Earned is. 6d. yesterday, bill distributing; noth- 
ing the day before. Been in good many London Casual 
Wards. Thinks they are no good, because they keep 
him all day, when he might be seeking work. Don't 
want shelter in day-time, wants work. If he goes in 
twice in a month to the same Casual Ward, the} detain 
him four days. Considers the food decidedly insuffi- 
cient to do the required amount of work. If the work 
is not done to time you are liable to 21 days' imprison- 
ment. Get badly treated some places, especially where 
there is a bullying superintendent. Has done 21 days 
for absolutely refusing to do the work on such low diet, 
when unfit. Can't get justice, doctor always sides with 
superintendent. 

J. S. ; odd jobber. Is working at board-carrying, when 
he can get it. There's quite a rush for it at is. 2d. a 
day. Carried a couple of parcels yesterday, got 5d. for 
them; also had a bit of bread and meat given him by a 
working-man, so altogether had an excellent day. Some- 
times goes all day without food, and plenty more do the 
same. Sleeps on Embankment, and now and then in 
Casual Waid. Latter is clean and comfortable enough, 
but they keep you in all day; that means no chance of 
getting work. Was a clerk once, but got out of a job, and 
couldn't ^^t another; there are so many clerks. 

*'A Tramp" says: "I've been in most Casual Wards in 
London; was in the one in Macklin Street, Drury Lane, 
last week. They keep you two nights and a day, and 
more than that if they recognize you. You have to break 
10 cwt. of stone, or pick four ounces of oakum. Both 
are hard. About thirty a night go to Macklin Street. 
The food is i pint gruel and 6 oz. bread for break- 
fast; 8 oz. bread and i}^ oz. cheese for dinner; tea same 
as breakfast. No supper. It is not enough to do the 



92 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

work on. Then you are obliged to bathe, of course; 
sometimes three will bathe in one water, and if you com- 
plain they turn nasty, and ask if you are come to a 
palace. Mitcham Workhouse I've been in ; grub is good ; 
i^ pint gruel and 8 oz. bread for breakfast, and same 
for supper." 

F. K. W. ; baker. Been board-carrying to-day, earned 
one shilling; hours 9 till 5. I've been on this kind of 
life six years. Used to work in a bakery, but had con- 
gestion of the brain, and couldn't stand the heat. I've 
been in about every Casual Ward in England. They 
treat men too harshly. Have to work very hard, too. 
Has had to work whilst really unfit. At Peckham 
(known as Camberwell) Union, was quite unable to do 
it through weakness, and appealed to the doctor, who, 
taking the part of the other officials, as usual, refused 
to allow him to forego the work. Cheeked the doctor, 
telling him he didn't understand his work; result, got 
three days' imprisonm.ent. Before going to a Casual 
Ward at all, I spent seven consecutive nights on the 
Embankment, and at last went to the ward. 

The result of the deliberate policy of making the 
night refuge for the unemployed laborer as disagreeable 
as possible, and of placing as many obstacles as possible 
in the way of his finding work the following day, is, no 
doubt, to minimize the number of Casuals, and without 
question succeeds. In the whole of London the number 
of Casuals in the Wards at night is only 1,136. That 
is to say, the conditions which are imposed are so 
severe, that the majority of the Out-of-Works prefer to 
sleep in the open air, taking their chance of the inclemency 
and mutability of our English weather, rather than go 
through the experience of the Casual Ward. 

It seems to me that such a mode of coping with dis- 
tress does not so much meet the difficulty as evade it. 
It is obvious that an apparatus which only provides for 
1,136 persons per night is utterly unable to deal with 
the numbers of the homeless Out-of-Works. But if by 



AND THE WAY OUT 93 

some miracle we could use the Casual Wards as a means 
of providing for all those who are seeking work from 
day to day, without a place in which to lay their heads, 
save the curbstone of the pavement or the back of a seat 
on the Embankment, they would utterly fail to have any 
appreciable effect upon the mass of human misery with 
which we have to deal; for this reason: the adminis- 
tration of the Casual Wards is mechanical, perfunctory, 
and formal. Each of the Casuals is to the Officer in 
Charge merely one Casual the more. There is no 
attempt whatever to do more than provide for them 
merely the indispensable requisites of existence. There 
has never been any attempt to treat them as human 
beings, to deal with them as individuals, to appeal to 
their hearts, to help them on their legs again. They 
are simply units, no more thought of and cared for than 
if they were so many coffee-beans passing through a 
coffee-mill; and as the net result of all my experience 
and observation of men and things, I must assert un- 
hesitatingly that anything which dehumanizes the individ- 
ual, anything which treats a man as if he were only a num- 
ber of a series or a cog in a wheel, without any regard to 
the character, the aspirations, the temptations, and the 
idiosyncrasies of the man, must utterly fail as a remedial 
agency. The Casual Ward, at the best, is merely a 
squalid resting-place for the Casual in his downward 
career. If anything is to be done for these men, it must 
be done b}^ other agents than those which prevail in the 
administration of the Poor Laws. 

The second method in which society endeavors to do 
its duty to the lapsed masses is by the miscellaneous 
and heterogeneous efforts which are clubbed together 
under the generic head of Charity. Far be it from me 
to say one word in disparagement of any effort that is 
prompted by a sincere desire to alleviate the misery of 



t)4 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

our fellow-creatures, but the most charitable are those 
who most deplore the utter failure which has, up till 
now, attended all their efforts to do more than tempo- 
rarily alleviate pain, or effect an occasional improvement 
in the condition of individuals. 

There are many institutions, very excellent in their way, 
without which it is difficult to see how society could get 
on at all, but when they have done their best there still 
remains this great and appalling mass of human misery 
on our hands, a perfect quagmire of Human Sludge. They 
may ladle out individuals here and there, but to drain 
the whole bog is an effort which seems to be beyond the 
imagination of most of those who spend their lives in 
philanthropic work. It is no doubt better than nothing to 
take the individual and feed him from day to day, to 
bandage up his wounds and heal his diseases; but you 
may go on doing that forever, if you do not do more 
than that; and the worst of it is that all authorities agree 
that if you only do that you will probably increase the 
evil with which you are attempting to deal, and that you 
had much better let the whole thing alone. 

There is at present no attempt at Concerted Action. 
Each one deals with the case immediately before him, 
and the result is what might be expected; there is a 
great expenditure, but the gains are, alas! very small. 
The fact, however, that so much is subscribed for the 
temporary relief and the mere alleviation of distress jus- 
tifies my confidence that if a Practical Scheme of dealing 
with this misery in a permanent, comprehensive fashion 
be discovered, there will be no lack of the sinews of 
war. It is well, no doubt, sometimes to administer an 
anaesthetic, but the Cure of the Patient is worth ever so 
much more, and the latter is the object which we must 
constantly set before us in approaching this problem. 

The third method by which society professes to at- 



AND THE WAY OUT 95 

tempt the reclamation of the lost is by the rough, rude 
surgery of the Jail. Upon this a whole treatise might 
be written, but when it was finished it would be nothing 
more than a demonstration that our Prison system has 
practically missed aiming at that which should be the 
first essential of every system of punishment. It is not 
Reformatory, it is not worked as if it were intended to 
be Reformatory. It is punitive, and only punitive. 
The whole administration needs to be reformed from top 
to bottom in accordance with this fundamental princi- 
ple, viz, that while every prisoner should be subjected 
to that measure of punishment which shall mark a due 
sense of his crime both to himself and societ}^, the main 
object should be to rouse in his mind the desire to lead 
an honest life; and to effect that change in his disposi- 
tion and character which will send him forth to put that 
desire into practice. At present, every Prison is more or 
less a Training School for Crime, an introduction to 
the society of criminals, the petrifaction of any linger- 
ing human feeling, and a very Bastile of Despair. The 
prison brand is stamped upon those who go in, and that 
so deeply, that it seems as if it clung to them for life. 
To enter Prison once means, in many cases, an almost 
certain return there at an early date. All this has to be 
changed, and will be, when once the work of Prison Re- 
form is taken in hand by men who understand the sub- 
ject, who believe in the reformation of human nature in 
every form which its depravity can assume, and who are 
in full sympathy with the class for whose benefit they 
labor; and when those charged directly with the care of 
criminals seek to work out their regeneration in the same 
spirit. 

The question of Prison Reform is all the more impor- 
tant because it is only by the agency of the Jail that 
Society attempts to deal with its .hopeless cases. If a 



96 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

woman, driven mad with shame, flings herself into the 
river, and is fished out alive, we clap her into Priso'n on 
a charge of attempted suicide. If a man, despairing of 
work and gaunt with hunger, helps himself to food, it is 
to the same reformatory agency that he is forthwith sub- 
jected. 

The rough and ready surgery with which we deal 
with our social patients recalls the simple method of 
the early physicians. The tradition still lingers among 
old people of doctors who prescribed bleeding for every 
ailment, and of keepers of asylums whose one idea of 
ministering to a mind diseased was to put the body into 
a strait waistcoat. Modern science laughs to scorn these 
simple "remedies" of an unscientific age, and declares that 
they were, in most cases, the most efficacious means of 
aggravating the disease they professed to cure. But in 
social maladies we are still in the age of the blood-let- 
ter and the strait waistcoat. The Jail is our specific 
for Despair. When all else fails, Society will always 
undertake to feed, clothe, warm, and house a man, if 
only he will commit a crime. It will do it also in such 
a fashion as to render it no temporary help, but a per- 
manent necessity. 

Society says to the individual: "To qualify for free 
board and lodging you must commit a crime. But if 
you do you must pay the price. You must allow me to 
ruin your character, and doom you for the rest of your 
life to destitution, modified by the occasional successes 
of criminality. You shall become the Child of the 
State, on condition that we doom you to a temporal 
perdition, out of which you will never be permitted to 
escape, and in which you will always be a charge upon 
our resources and a constant source of anxiety and in- 
convenience to the authorities. I will feed you, cer- 
tainly, but in return you must permit me to damn you." 



AND THE WAY OUT 97 

That surely ought not to be the last word of Civilized 
Society. 

"Certainly not," say others. "Emigration is the true 
specific. The waste lands of the world are crying aloud 
for the application of surplus labor. Emigration is the 
panacea." Now I have no objection to emigration. 
Only a criminal lunatic could seriously object to the 
transference of hungry Jack from an overcrowded shanty — 
where he cannot even obtain enough bad potatoes to dull 
the ache behind his waistcoat, and is tempted to let his child 
die for the sake of the insurance money — to a land flow- 
ing with milk and honey, where he can eat meat three 
times a day, and where a man's children are his wealth. 
But 3^ou might as well lay a new-born child naked in the 
middle of a new-sown field in March, and expect it to 
live and thrive, as expect emigration to produce suc- 
cessful results on the lines which some lay down. The 
child, no doubt, has within it latent capacities which, 
when years and training have done their work, will en- 
able him to reap a harvest from a fertile soil, and the' 
new-sown field will be covered with golden grain in 
August. But these facts will not enable the infant to 
still its hunger with the clods of the earth in the cold 
Spring-time. It is just like that with emigration. It is 
simply criminal to take a multitude of untrained men 
and women and land them penniless and helpless on the 
fringe of some new continent. The result of such pro- 
ceedings we see in the American cities; in the degrada- 
tion of their slums, and in the hopeless demoralization 
of thousands who, in their own country, were living de- 
cent, industrious lives. 

A few months since, in Paramatta, in New South Wales, 
a young man who had emigrated with a vague hope of 
mending his fortunes, found himself homeless, friend- 
less, and penniless. He was a clerk. They wanted no 
7 



98 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

more clerks in Paramatta. Trade was dull, employment 
was scarce, even for trained hands. He went about from 
day to day seeking work and finding none. At last he 
came to the end of all his resources. He went all day 
without food; at night he slept as best he could. Morn- 
ing came, and he was hopeless. All next day passed 
without a meal. Night came. He could not sleep. He 
wandered about restlessly. At last, about midnight, an 
idea seized him. Grasping a brick, he deliberately 
walked up to a jeweler's window, and smashed a hole 
through the glass. He made no attempt to steal any- 
thing. He merely smashed the pane and then sat down 
on the pavement beneath the window, waiting for the 
arrival of the policeman. He waited some hours; but at 
last the constable arrived. He gave himself up, and was 
marched off to the lock-up. "I shall at least have some- 
thing to eat now," was the reflection. He was right. 
He was sentenced to one year's imprisonment, and he is 
in jail at this hour. This very morning he received his 
rations, and at this very moment he is lodged and 
clothed and cared for at the cost of the rates and taxes. 
He has become the child of the State, and, therefore, 
one of the socially damned. Thus emigration itself, in- 
stead of being an invariable specific, sometimes brings 
us back again to the jail door. 

Emigration, by all means. But whom are you to em- 
igrate? These girls who do not know how to bake? 
These lads who never handled a spade? And where are 
you to emigrate them? Are you going to make the Col- 
onies the dumping-ground of your human refuse? On 
that the colonists will have something decisive to say, 
where there are colonists; and where there are not, how 
are you to feed, clothe, and employ your emigrants in 
the uninhabited wilderness? Immigration, no doubt, is 
the making of a colony, just as bread is the staff of life. 



AND THE WAY OUT 99 

But if you were to cram a stomach with wheat by a 
force-pump you would bring on such a fit of indigestion 
that unless your victim threw up the indigestible mass 
of unground, uncooked, unmasticated grain he would 
never want another meal. So it is with new colonies and 
the surplus labor of other countries. 

Emigration is in itself not a panacea. Is Education? 
In one sense it may be, for Education, the developing 
in a man of all his latent capacities for improvement, 
may cure anything and everything. But the Education of 
which men speak when they use the term, is mere 
schooling. No one but a fool would say a word against 
school-teaching. By all means let us have our children 
educated. But when we have passed them through the 
Board School Mill we have enough experience to see 
that they do not emerge the renovated and regenerated 
beings whose advent was expected by those who passed 
the Education Act. The "scuttlers" who knife inoffen- 
sive persons in Lancashire, the fighting gangs of the 
West of London, belong to the generation that has en- 
joyed the advantage of Compulsory Education. Educa- 
tion, book-learning, and schooling will not solve the diffi- 
culty. It helps, no doubt. But in some ways it aggra- 
vates it. The common school to which the children of 
thieves and harlots and drunkards are driven, to sit side 
by side with our little ones, is often by no means a 
temple of all the virtues. It is sometimes a university 
of all the vices. The bad infect the good, and your boy 
and girl come back reeking with the contamination of 
bad associates, and familiar with the coarsest obscenity 
of the slum. Another great evil is the extent to which 
our Education tends to overstock the labor market with 
material for quill-drivers and shopmen, and gives our 
youth a distaste for sturdy labor. Many of the most 
hopeless cases in our Shelters are men of considerable 



100 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

education. Our schools help to enable a starving man 
to tell his story in more grammatical language than that 
which his father could have employed, but they do not 
feed him, or teach him where to go to get fed. So far 
from doing this they increase the tendency to drift into 
those channels where food is least secure, because em- 
ployment is most uncertain, and the market most over- 
stocked. 

"Try Trades Unionism," say some, and their advice is 
being widely followed. There are many and great advan- 
tages in Trades Unionism. The fable of the bundle of 
sticks is good for all time. The more the working-peo- 
ple can be banded together in voluntary organizations 
created and administered by themselves for the pro- 
tection of their own interests, the better — at any rate 
for this world — and not only for their own interests, but 
for those of every other section of the community. But 
can we rely upon this agency as a means of solving the 
problems which confront us? Trades Unionism has had 
the field to itself for a generation. It is twenty years 
since it was set free from all the legal disabilities under 
which it labored. But it has not covered the land. It 
has not organized all skilled labor. Unskilled labor is 
almost untouched. At the Congress at Liverpool only 
one and a half million workmen were represented. 
Women are almost entirely outside the pale. Trade 
Unions not only represent a fraction of the laboring 
classes, but they are, by their constitution, unable to deal 
with those who do not belong to their body. What 
ground can there be, then, for hoping that Trades Union- 
ism will by itself solve the difficulty? The most ex- 
perienced Trades Unionists will be the first to admit 
that any scheme which could deal adequately with the Out- 
of-Works and others who hang onto their skirts and form 
the recruiting ground of blacklegs and embarrass them 



AND THE WAY OUT 101 

in every way, would be, of all others, that which would 
be most beneficial to Trades Unionism. The same may 
be said about Co-operation. Personally, I am a strong 
believer in Co-operation, but it must be Co-operation 
based on the spirit of benevolence. I don't see how any 
pacific readjustment of the social and economic relations 
between classes in this country can be effected except by 
the gradual substitution of co-operative associations 
for the present wages system. As you will see in sub- 
sequent chapters, so far from there being anything in 
my proposals that would militate in any way against 
the ultimate adoption of the co-operative solution of the 
question, I look to Co-operation as one of the chief 
elements of hope in the future. But we have not to 
deal with the ultimate future, but with the immediate 
present, and for the evils with which we are dealing the 
existing co-operative organizations do not and cannot 
give us much help. 

Another — I do not like to call it specific, it is only a 
name, a mere mockery of a specific — so let me call it an- 
other suggestion made when discussing this evil, ^ is 
Thrift. Thrift is a great virtue, no doubt. But how is 
Thrift to benefit those who have nothing? What is the 
use of the gospel of Thrift to a man who had nothing 
to eat yesterday, and has not threepence to-day to pay 
for his lodging to-night? To live on nothing a day 
is difficult enough, but to save on it would beat the clev- 
erest political economist that ever lived. I admit with- 
out hesitation that any Scheme which weakened the in- 
centive to Thrift "would do harm. But it is a mistake 
to imagine that social damnation is an incentive to 
Thrift. It operates least where its force ought*to be most 
felt. There is no fear that any Scheme that we can de- 
vise will appreciably diminish the deterrent influences 
which dispose a man to save. But it is idle wasting 



103 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

time upon a plea that is only brought forward as an ex- 
cuse for inaction. Thrift is a great virtue, the inculca- 
tion of which must be constantly kept in view by all those 
who are attempting to educate and save the people. It is 
not in any sense a specific for the salvation of the lapsed 
and the lost. Even among the most wretched of the very 
poor, a man must have an object and a hope before he 
will save a halfpenny. "Let us eat and drink, for to- 
morrow we perish," sums up the philosophy of those 
who have no hope. In the thriftiness of the French 
peasant we see that the temptation of eating and drink- 
ing is capable of being resolutely subordinated to the 
superior claims of the accumulation of a dowry for the 
daughter or for the acquisition of a little more land 
for the son. 

Of the schemes of those who propose to bring in a new 
heaven and a new earth by a more scientific distribution 
of the pieces of gold and silver in the trouser pockets 
of mankind, I need not say anything here. They 
may be good, or they may not. I say nothing against 
any short cut to the Millennium that is compatible with 
tHe Ten Commandments. I intensely sympathize with 
the aspirations that lie behind all these Socialist 
dreams. But whether it is Henry George's Single Tax 
on Land Values, or Edward Bellamy's Nationalism, or 
the more elaborate schemes of the Collectivists, my at- 
titude towards them all is the same. What these good 
people want to do, I also want to do. But I am a prac- 
tical man, dealing with the actualities of to-day. I 
have no preconceived theories, and I flatter myself I am 
singularly free from prejudices. I am ready to sit at the 
feet of any who will show me any good. I keep my 
mind open;on all these subjects, and am quite prepared 
to hail with open arms any Utopia that is offered me. 
gut it must be within range of my finger-tips. It is of n® 



AND THE WAY OUT 103 

use to me if it is in the clouds. Checks on the Bank of 
Futurity I accept gladly enough as a free gift, but I can 
hardly be expected to take them as if they were current 
coin, or to try to cash them at the Bank of England. 

It may be that nothing will be put permanently right 
until everything has been turned upside down. There 
are certainly so many things that need transforming, be- 
ginning with the heart of each individual man and 
woman, that I do not quarrel with any Visionary when, 
in his intense longing for the amelioration of the con- 
dition of mankind, he lays down his theories as to 
the necessity for radical change, however impracti- 
cable they may appear to me. But this is the question: 
Here at our Shelter last night were a thousand hungry, 
wojrkless people. I want to know what to do with them? 
Here is John Jones, a stout, stalwart laborer, in rags, who 
has not had one square meal for a month, who has been 
hunting for work that will enable him to keep body and 
soul together, and hunting in vain. There he is in his 
hungry raggedness, asking for work that he may live, 
and not die of sheer starvation in the midst of the 
wealthiest city in the world. What is to be done with 
John Jones? 

The individualist tells me that the free play of the 
Natural Laws governing the struggle for existence will 
result in the Survival of the Fittest, and that in the 
course of a few ages, more or less, a much nobler type 
will be evolved. But meanwhile what is to become of 
John Jones? The Socialist tells me that the great Social 
Revolution is looming large on the horizon. In the 
good time coming, when wealth will be re-distributed 
and private property abolished, all stomachs will be 
filled, and there will be no more John Joneses impa- 
tiently clamoring for opportunity to work that they may 
not die. It may be so, but in the meantime here is John 



104 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Jones growing more impatient than ever because hungrier, 
who wonders if he is to wait for a dinner until the So- 
cial Revolution has arrived. What are we to do with 
John Jones? That is the question. And to the solution 
of that question none of the Utopians give me much 
help. For practical purposes these dreamers fall under 
the condemnation they lavish so freely upon the conven- 
tional religious people who relieve themselves of all anx- 
iety for the welfare of the poor by saying that in the next 
world all will be put right. This religious cant, which 
rids itself of all the importunity of suffering humanity by 
drawing unnegotiable bills payable on the other side of 
the grave, is not more impracticable than the Social- 
istic clap-trap which postpones all redress of human 
suffering until after the general overturn. Both take ref- 
uge in the Future to escape a solution of the problems 
of the Present, and it matters little to the sufferers 
whether the Future is on this side of the grave or the 
other. Both are, for them, equally out of reach. 

When the sky falls we shall catch larks. No doubt. 
But in the meantime? 

It is the meantime — that is the only time in which we 
have to work. It is in the meantime that the people 
must be fed, that their life's work must be done or left 
undone forever. Nothing that I have to propose in this 
book, or that I propose to do by my Scheme, will in the 
least prevent the coming of any of the Utopias. I leave 
the limitless infinite of the Future to the Utopians. 
They may build there as they please. As for me, it is 
indispensable that whatever I do is founded on existing 
fact, and provides a present help for the actual need. 

There is only one class of men who have cause to op- 
pose the proposals which I am about to set forth. That 
is those, if such there be, who are determined to bring 
about by any and every means a bloody and violent over- 



AND THE WAY OUT 105 

turn of all existing institutions. They will oppose the 
Scheme, and they will act logically in so doing. For 
the only hope of those who are the artificers of Rev- 
olution is the mass of seething discontent and misery that 
lies in the heart of the social system. Honestly believing 
that things must get worse before they get better, they 
build all their hopes upon the general overturn, and they 
resent as an indefinite postponement of the realization 
of their dreams any attempt at a reduction of human mis- 
er 3\ 

The Army of the Revolution is recruited by the Sol- 
diers of Despair. Therefore, down with any Scheme 
which gives men Hope. In so far as it succeeds it cur- 
tails our recruiting ground and reinforces the ranks of 
our Enemies. Such opposition is to be counted upon 
and to be utilized as the best of all tributes to the 
value of our work. Those who thus count upon violence 
and bloodshed are too few to hinder, and their opposi- 
tion will merely add to the momentum with which I 
hope and believe this Scheme will ultimately be enabled 
to surmount all dissent, and achieve, with the blessing 
of God, that measure of success with which I verily be- 
lieve it to be charged. 



PART II.-DELIYERANCE 



CHAPTER I 

A STUPENDOUS UNDERTAKING 

Such, then, is a brief and hurried survey of Darkest 
England; and those who have been in the depths of the 
enchanted forest in which wander the tribes of the 
despairing Lost will be the first to admit that I have in 
no way exaggerated its horrors, while most will assert 
that I have under-estimated the number of its denizens. 
I have, indeed, very scrupulously striven to keep my 
estimates of the extent of the evil within the lines of 
sobriety. Nothing in such an enterprise as that on 
which I am entering could worse befall me than to come 
under the reproach of sensationalism or exaggeration. 
Most of the evidence upon which I have relied is taken 
direct from the official statistics supplied by the Gov- 
ernment Returns; and as to the rest, I can only say that 
if my figures are compared with those of any other 
writer upon this subject, it will be found that my esti- 
mates are the lowest. I am not prepared to defend the 
exact accuracy of my calculations, excepting so far as 
they constitute the minimum. To those who believe that 
the numbers of the wretched are far in excess of my fig- 
ures, I have nothing to say, excepting this, that if the 
evil is so much greater than I have described, then let 
your efforts be proportioned to your estimate, not to 

100 



AND THE WAY OUT 107 

mine. The great point with each of us is, not how 
man}^ of the wretched exist to-day, but how few shall 
there exist in the years that are to come. 

The dark and dismal jungle of pauperism, vice, and 
despair is the inheritance to which we have succeeded 
from the generations and centuries past, during which 
wars, insurrections, and internal troubles left our fore- 
fathers small leisure to attend to the well-being of the 
sunken tenth. Now that we have happened upon more 
fortunate times, let us recognize that we are our broth- 
er's keepers, and set to work, regardless of party distinc- 
tions and religious differences, to make this world of 
ours a little bit more like home for those whom we call 
our brethren. 

The problem, it must be admitted, is by no means a 
simple one; nor can anyone accuse me in the foregoing 
pages of having minimized the difficulties which hered- 
ity, habit, and surroundings place in the way of its 
solution, but unless we are prepared to fold our arms in 
selfish ease and say that nothing can be done, and 
thereby doom those lost millions to remediless perdition 
in this world, to say nothing of the next, the problem 
must be solved in some way. But in what way? That is 
the question. It may tend, perhaps, to the crystalliza- 
tion of opinion on this subject if I lay down, with such 
precision as I can command, what must be the essential 
elements of any scheme likely to command success. 

Section I.— THE ESSENTIALS TO SUCCESS 

The jfirst essential that must be borne in mind as governing 
every Scheme that may be put forward is that it must change 
the man when it is his character and conduct which constitute 
the reasons for his failure in the battle of life. No change 
in circumstances, no revolution in social conditions, 
can possibly transform the nature of man. Some of the 



108 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

worst men and women in the world, whose names are 
chronicled by history with a shudder of horror, were 
those who had all the advantages that wealth, education, 
and station could confer or ambition could attain. 

The supreme test of any scheme for benefiting humanity 
lies in the answer to the question, What does it make 
of the individual? Does it quicken his conscience, 
does it soften his heart, does it enlighten his mind; does 
it, in short, make more of a true man of him? because 
only by such influences can he be enabled to lead a hu- 
man life. Among the denizens of Darkest England there 
are many who have found their way thither by defects 
of character which would under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances relegate them to the same position. Hence, 
unless you can change their character your labor will be 
lost. You may clothe the drunkard, fill his purse with 
gold, establish him in a well-furnished home, and in 
three, or six, or twelve months he will once more be on 
the Embankment, haunted by delirium tremens, dirty, 
squalid, and ragged. Hence, in all cases where a man's 
own character and defects constitute the reasons for his 
fall, that character must be changed and that conduct 
altered if any permanent beneficial results are to be at- 
tained. If he is a drunkard, he must be made sober; 
if idle, he must be made industrious; if criminal, he 
must be made honest; if impure, he must be made clean; 
and if he be so deep down in vice, and has been there 
so long that he has lost all heart, and hope, and power 
to help himself, and absolutely refuses to move, he must 
be inspired with hope and have created within him the 
ambition to rise; otherwise he will never get out of the 
horrible pit. 

Secondly: The remedy^ to be effectual, must change the 
circumstances of the individual when they are the cause of his 
wretched condition, and lie beyond his control. Among those 



AND THE WAY OUT 109 

who have arrived at their present evil plight through 
faults of self-indulgence or some defect in their moral 
character, how many are there who would have been 
very differently placed to-day had their surroundings 
been otherwise? Charles Kingsley puts this very abruptly 
where he makes the Poacher's widow say, when address- 
ing the Bad Squire, who drew back — 

"Our daughters, with base-born babies, 
Have wandered away in their shame. 
If your misses had slept, Squire , where they did, 
Your misses might do the same." 

Placed in the same or similar circumstances, how many 
of us would have turned out better than this poor, 
lapsed, sunken multitude? 

Many of this crowd have never had a chance of doing 
better; they have been born in a poisoned atmosphere, 
educated in circumstances which have rendered modesty 
an impossibility, and have been thrown into life in 
conditions which make vice a second nature. Hence, 
to provide an effective remedy for the evils which we 
are deploring, these circumstances must be altered, and 
unless my Scheme effects such a change, it will be of 
no use. There are multitudes, myriads, of men and 
women, who are floundering in the horrible quagmire 
beneath the burden of a load too heavy for them to bear; 
every plunge they take forward lands them deeper; 
some have ceased even to struggle, and lie prone in the 
filthy bog, slowly suffocating, with their manhood and 
womanhood all but perished. It is no use standing on 
the firm bank of the quaking morass and anathematizing 
these poor wretches; if you are to do them any good, 
you must give them another chance to get on their feet, 
you must give them firm foothold upon which they can 
once more stand upright, and you must build stepping- 
stones across the bog to enable them safely to reach the 
other side. Favorable circumstances will not change a 



110 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

man's heart or transform his nature, but unpropitious 
circumstances may render it absolutely impossible for 
him to escape, no matter how he may desire to extricate 
himself. The first step with these helpless, sunken 
creatures is to create the desire to escape, and then pro- 
vide the means for doing so. In other words, give the 
man another chance. 

Thirdly: Any remedy worthy of consideration must be on a 
scale commensurate with the evil with which it proposes to 
deal. It is no use trying to bail out the ocean with a 
pint pot. This evil is one whose victims are counted by 
the million. The army of the Lost in our midst exceeds 
the numbers of that multitudinous host which Xerxes led 
from Asia to attempt the conquest of Greece. Pass in 
parade those who make up the submerged tenth, count the 
paupers indoor and outdoor, the homeless, the starving, 
the criminals, the lunatics, the drunkards, and the harlots 
— and yet do not give way to despair! Even to attempt 
to save a tithe of this host requires that we should put 
much more force and fire into our work than has hitherto 
been exhibited by anyone. There must be no more phil- 
anthropic tinkering, as if this vast sea of human misery 
were contained in the limits of a garden pond. 

Fourthly: Not only must the Scheme be large enough, but 
it must be permanent. That is to say, it must not be 
merely a spasmodic effort coping with the misery of to- 
day; it must be established on a durable footing, so as 
to go on dealing with the misery of to-morrow and the 
day after, so long as there is misery left in the world 
with which to grapple. 

Fifthly: BiU while it must be permaneftt, it must also be 
immediately practicable. Any Scheme, to be of use, must 
be capable of being brought into instant operation with 
beneficial results. 



ANt) THE WAY OUT ill 

' Sixthly: The indirect features of the Scheme must not be such 
as to produce injury to the persons whom we seek to beiiefit. 
Mere charity, for instance, while relieving the pinch of 
hunger, demoralizes the recipient; and whatever the 
remedy is that we employ, it must be of such a nature 
as to do good without doing evil at the same time. It 
is no use conferring six pennyworth of benefit on a man 
if, at the same time, we do him a shilling's worth of 
harm. 

Seventhly: While assist ifig one class of the community , it 
must not seriously interfere with the interests of another. 
In raising one section of the fallen, we must not there- 
by endanger the safety of those who with difficulty are 
keeping on their feet. 

These are the conditions by which I ask you to test 
the Scheme I am about to unfold. They are formidable 
enough, possibly, to deter many from even attempting 
to do anything. They are not of my making. They are 
obvious to anyone who looks into the matter. They are 
the laws which govern the work of the philanthropic re- 
former, just as the laws of gravitation, of wind, and of 
weather, govern the operations of the engineer. It is 
no use saying we could build a bridge across the Tay if 
the wind did not blow, or that we could build a railway 
across a bog if the quagmire would afford us a solid 
foundation. The engineer has to take into account the 
difficulties, and make them his starting-point. The wind 
will blow; therefore the bridge must be made strong 
enough to resist it. Chat Moss will shake; therefore we 
must construct a foundation in the very bowels of the 
bog on which to build our railway. So it is with the 
social difficulties which confront us. If we act in har- 
mony with these laws we shall triumph; but if we ignore 
them they will overwhelm us with destruction and cover 
us with disgrace. 



113 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

But, difficult as the task may be, it is not one which 
we can neglect. When Napoleon was compelled to 
retreat under circumstances which rendered it impossi- 
ble for him to carry off his sick and wounded, he ordered 
his doctors to poison every man in the hospital. A gen- 
eral has before now massacred his prisoners rather than 
allow them to escape. These Lost ones are the Prisoners 
of Society; they are the Sick and Wounded in our Hospi- 
tals. What a shriek would arise from the civilized 
world if it were proposed to administer to-night to 
every one of these millions such a dose of morphine 
that they would sleep to wake no more. But so far as 
they are concerned, would it not be much less cruel 
thus to end their life than to allow them to drag on day 
after day, year after year, in misery, anguish, and de- 
spair, driven into vice and hunted into crime, until at 
last disease harries them into the grave? 

I am under no delusion as to the possibility of inaugu- 
rating a millennium by my Scheme; but the triumphs 
of science deal so much with the utilization of waste 
material, that I do not despair of something effectual 
being accomplished in the utilization of this waste 
human product. The refuse which was a drug and a 
curse to our manufacturers, when treated under the 
hands of a chemist, has been the means of supplying us 
with dyes rivaling in loveliness and variety the hues of 
the rainbow. If the alchemy of science can extract 
beautiful colors from coal tar, cannot Divine alchemy 
enable us to evolve gladness and brightness out of the 
agonized hearts and dark, dreary, loveless lives of these 
doomed myriads? Is it too much to hope that in God's 
world God's children may be able to do something, if 
they set to work with a will, to carry out a plan of cam- 
paign against these great evils which are the nightmare 
of our existence? 



AND THE WAY OUT 113 

The remedy, it may be, is simpler than some imagine. 
The key to the enigma may lie closer to our hands than 
we have any idea of. Many devices have been tried, and 
many have failed, no doubt; it is only stubborn, reck- 
less perseverance that can hope to succeed; it is well 
that we recognize this. How many ages did men try to 
make gunpowder, and never succeeded? They would put 
saltpetre to charcoal, or charcoal to sulphur, or saltpetre 
to sulphur, and so were ever unable to make the com- 
pound explode. But it has only been discovered within 
the last few hundred years that all three were needed. 
Before that gunpowder was a mere imagination, a phan- 
tasy of the alchemists. How easy it is to make gun- 
powder, now the secret of its manufacture is known! 

But take a simpler illustration, one which lies even 
within the memory of some that read these pages. From 
the beginning of the world down to the beginning of this 
century, mankind had not found out, with all its striv- 
ing after cheap and easy transport, the miraculous 
difference that would be brought about by laying down 
two parallel lines of metal. All the great men and the 
wise men of the past lived and died oblivious of that 
fact. The greatest mechanicians and engineers of antiq- 
uity, the men who bridged all the rivers of Europe, the 
architects who built the cathedrals which are still the 
wonder of the world, failed to discern what seems to us so 
obviously simple a proposition, that two parallel lines of 
rail would diminish the cost and difficulty of transport 
to a minimum. Without that discovery the steam engine, 
which has itself been an invention of quite recent years, 
would have failed to transform civilization. 

What we have to do in the philanthropic sphere 
is to find something analogous to the engineers' parallel 
bars. This discovery I think I have made, and hence 
have I written this book. 
8 



114 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Section II.— MY SCHEME 

What, then, is my Scheme? It is a very simple one, 
although in its ramifications and extensions it embraces 
the whole world. In this book I profess to do no more 
than to merely outline, as plainly and as simply as I can, 
the fundamental features of my proposals. I propose to 
devote the bulk of this volume to setting forth what can 
practically be done with one of the most pressing parts 
of the problem, namely, that relating to those who are 
out of work, and who, as the result, are more or less des- 
titute. I have many ideas of what might be done with 
those who are at present cared for in some measure by 
the State, but I will leave these ideas for the present. 

It is not urgent that I should explain how our Poor 
Law system could be reformed, or what I should like to 
see done for the Lunatics in Asylums, or the Criminals 
in Jails. The persons who are provided for by the 
State we will, therefore, for the moment, leave out of 
count. The indoor paupers, the convicts, the inmates of 
the lunatic asylums are cared for, in a fashion, already. 
But, over and above all these, there exist some hundreds 
of thousands who are not quartered on the State, but 
who are living on the verge of despair, and who at any 
moment, under circumstances of misfortune, might be 
compelled to demand relief or support in one shape or 
another. I will confine myself, therefore, for the present 
to those who have no helper. 

It is possible, I think probable, if the proposals 
which I am now putting forward are carried out suc- 
cessfully in relation to the lost, homeless, and help- 
less of the population, that many of those who 
are at the present moment in somewhat better cir- 
cumstances will demand that they also shall be allowed 
to partake in the benefits of the Scheme. But upon this 



AND THE WAY OUT 115 

also I remain silent. I merely remark that we have, in 
the recognition of the importance of discipline and 
organization, what maybe called regimented co-operation, 
a principle that will be found valuable for solving many 
social problems other than that of destitution. Of these 
plans, which are at present being brooded over with a 
view to their realization when the time is propitious and 
the opportunity occurs, I shall have something to say. 
What is the outward and visible form of the Problem 
of the Unemployed. Alas! we are all too familiar with 
it for any lengthy description to be necessary. The so- 
cial problem presents itself before us whenever a hungry, 
dirty, and ragged man stands at our door asking if we can 
give him a crust or a job. That is the social question. 
What are you to do with that man? He has no money 
in his pocket, all that he can pawn he has pawned long 
ago, his stomach is as empty as his purse, and the whole 
of the clothes upon his back, even if sold on the best 
terms, would not fetch a shilling. There he stands, your 
brother, with sixpennyworth of rags to cover his naked- 
ness from his fellow-men and not sixpennyworth of 
victuals within his reach. He asks for work, which he 
will set to even on his empty stomach and in his ragged 
uniform, if so be that you will give him something for 
it, but his hands are idle, for no one employs him. What 
are you to do with that man? That is the great note of 
interrogation that confronts Society to-day. Not only in 
overcrowded England, but in newer countries beyond the 
sea, where Society has not yet provided a means by which 
the men can be put upon the land and the land be made to 
feed the men. To deal with this man is the Problem of 
the Unemployed. To deal with him effectively you must 
deal with him immediately, you must provide him in some 
way or other at once with food, and shelter, and warmth. 
Next you must find him something to do, something that 



116 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

will test the reality of his desire to work. This test must 
be more or less temporary, and should be of such a na- 
ture as to prepare him for making a permanent liveli- 
hood. Then, having trained him, you must provide him 
wherewithal to start life afresh. All these things I pro- 
pose to do. My Scheme divides itself into three sec- 
tions, each of which is indispensable for the success of 
the whole. In this three-fold organization lies the open 
secret of the solution of the Social Problem. 

The Scheme I have to offer consists in the formation of 
these people into self-helping and self-sustaining com- 
munities, each being a kind of co-operative society, or 
patriarchal family, governed and disciplined on the prin- 
ciples which have already proved so effective in the Sal- 
vation Army. 

These communities we will call, for v\^ant of a better 
term, Colonies. There will be — 

(i) The City Colony. 

(2) The Farm Colony. 

(3) The Over-Sea Colony. 

THE CITY COLONY 

By the City Colony is meant the establishment, in the 
very centre of the ocean of misery of which we have been 
speaking, of a number of Institutions to act as Harbors 
of Refuge for all and any who have been shipwrecked in 
life, character, or circumstances. These Harbors will 
gather up the poor, destitute creatures, supply their im- 
mediate pressing necessities, furnish temporary employ- 
ment, inspire them with hope for the future, and com- 
mence at once a course of regeneration by moral and re- 
ligious influences. 

From these Institutions, which are hereafter described, 
numbers would, after a short time, be floated off to per- 
manent employment, or sent home to friends happy to 



AND THE WAY OUT 117 

receive them on hearing of their reformation. All who 
remain on our hands would, by varied means, be tested 
as to their sincerity, industry, and honesty, and as soon 
as satisfaction was created, be passed on to the Colony 
of the second class. 

THE FARM COLONY 

This would consist of a settlement of the Colonists on 
an estate in the provinces, in the culture of which they 
would find employment and obtain support. As the race 
from the Country to the City has been the cause of much 
of the distress we have to battle with, we propose to 
find a substantial part of our remedy by transferring 
those same people back to the country — that is, back 
again to "the Garden! " 

Here the process of reformation of character would be 
carried forward by the same industrial, moral, and relig- 
ious methods as have already been commenced in the 
City, especially including those forms of labor and that 
knowledge of agriculture which, should the Colonist 
not obtain employment in this country, will qualify him 
for pursuing his fortunes under more favorable circum- • 
stances in some other land. 

From the Farm, as from the City, there can be no 
question that large numbers, resuscitated in health and 
character, would be restored to friends up and down 
the country. Some would find employment in their own 
callings, others would settle in cottages on a small 
piece of land that we should provide, or on Co-oper- 
ative Farms which we intend to promote; while the 
great bulk, after trial and training, would be passed 
on to the Foreign Settlement, which would constitute 
our third class — namely. The Over-Sea Colony. 

THE OVER-SEA COLONY 

All wl.o have given attention to the subject are 



:iS IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

agreed that in our Colonies in South Africa, Canada, 
Western Australia, and elsewhere, there are millions of 
acres of useful land to be obtained almost for the asking, 
capable of supporting our surplus population in health 
and comfort, were it a thousand times greater than it 
is. We propose to secure a tract of land in one of these 
countries, prepare it for settlement, establish in it au- 
thority, govern it by equitable laws, assist it in times of 
necessity, settling it gradually with a prepared people, 
and so secure a home for these destitute multitudes. 

The Scheme, in its entirety, may aptly be compared to 
A Great Machine, foundationed in the lowest slums and 
purlieus of our great towns and cities, drawing up into 
its embrace the depraved and destitute of all classes; re- 
ceiving thieves, harlots, paupers, drunkards, prodigals, 
all alike, on the simple conditions of their being will- 
ing to work and to conform to discipline. Drawing up 
these poor outcasts, reforming them, and creating in 
them habits of industry, honesty, and truth; teaching 
them methods by which alike the bread that perishes and 
that which endures to Everlasting Life can be won; for- 
warding them from the City to the Country, and there 
continuing the process of regeneration, and then pouring 
them forth on to the virgin soils that await their coming 
in other lands, keeping hold of them with a strong gov- 
ernment, and yet making them free men and women ; 
and so laying the foundations, perchance, of another 
Empire to swell to vast proportions in later times. 
Why not? 



;.-.-» ^. 



CHAPTER II 

TO THE rescue! THE CITY COLONY 

The* first section of my Scheme is the establishment of 
a Receiving House for the Destitute in every great cen- 
tre of population. We start, let us remember, from the 
individual, the ragged, hungry, penniless man who con- 
fronts us with despairing demands for food, shelter, and 
work. Now, I have had some two or three years' experi- 
ence in dealing with this class. I believe, at the pres- 
ent moment, the Salvation Army supplies more food and 
shelter to the destitute than any other organization in 
London, and it is the experience and encouragement 
which I have gained in the working of these Food and 
Shelter Depots which has largely encouraged me to pro- 
pound this scheme. 

Section I.— FOOD AND SHELTER FOR 
EVERY MAN 

As I rode through Canada and the United States some 
three years ago, I was greatly impressed with the super- 
abundance of food which I saw at every turn. Oh, 
how I longed that the poor, starving people, and the 
hungry children of the East of London and of other cen- 
tres of our destitute populations, should come into the 
midst of this abundance; but as it appeared impossible 
for me to take them to it, I secretly resolved that I would 
endeavor to bring some of it to them, I am thankful 

119 



120 



IN DARKEST ENGLAND 



to say that I have already been able to do so on a small 
scale, and hope to accomplish it ere long on a much 
vaster one. With this view, the first Cheap Food Depot 
was opened in the East of London two and a half years 
ago. This has been followed by others, and we have 
now three establishments; others are being arranged for. 

Since the commencement in 1888, we have supplied 
over three and a half million meals. 

Some idea can be formed of the extent to which these 
Food and Shelter Depots have already struck their roots 
into the strata of Society which it is proposed to bene- 
fit, by the following figures, which give the quantities 
of food sold during the year at our Food Depots: 



FOOD SOLD IN DEPOTS AND SHELTERS DURING 1889. 
Weight. 
192 J^ tons.. 



Article. 

Soup 

Bread 

Tea 

Coftee 

Cocoa 

Sugar 

Potatoes 

Flour 

Peaflour 

Oatmeal 

Rice 

B^ans , 

Onions and Parsnips 

Jam 

Marmalade 

Meat 

Milk 



15 cwt.. 

6 tons. 
25 " 
140 " 
18 " 
28% " 

Z% " 
12 " 
12 " 
12 " 

9 " 

6 " 
15 " 



Measure. 

116,400 gallons 

106,964 4-lb. loaves. 

46,980 gallons 

13.949 " 

29,229 " , 



Remarks. 



300 


bags 


2,800 


" 


180 sacks 


288 




36 


" 


120 


" 


240 


" 


240 


" 


2,880 


jars. 


1,920 


" 



14,300 quarts 

This includes returns from three Food Depots and five 
Shelters. I propose to multiply their number, to develop 
their usefulness, and to make them the threshold of the 
whole Scheme. Those who have already visited our 
Depots will understand exactly what this means. The 
majority, however, of the readers of these pages have 
not done so, and for them it is necessary to explain 
what they are. 

At each of our Depots, which can be seen by anybody 
that cares to take the trouble to visit them, there are two 
departments, one dealing with food, the other with 



AND THE WAY OUT 121 

shelter. Of these both are worked together and minister 
to the same individuals. Many come for food who do 
not come for shelter, althdugh most of those who come 
for shelter also come for food, which is sold on terms 
to cover, as nearly as possible, the cost price and work- 
ing expenses of the establishment. In this our Food 
Depots differ from the ordinary soup-kitchen3. 

There is no gratuitous distribution of victuals. The 
following is our Price List: 

WHAT IS SOLD AT THE FOOD DEPOTS. 

FOR A CHILD. 

d. 

Coffee or Cocoa per cup % 

" " with Bread and J am J4 



d. 

S Dup per basin % 

" with Bread ^ 



FOR ADULTS. 



d. 

Soup Per Basin 3^ 

" With Bread i 

Potatoes Yq, 

Cabbage ^ 

Haricot Beans j^ 

Boiled Jam Pudding J^ 

" Plum " each I 

Rice " % 

Baked Plum " % 



d. 

Baked Jam Roll i^ 

Meat Pudding and Potatoes 3 

Corned Beef " 2 

" Mutton " 2 

Coffee per cup, Vid.; per mug i 

Cocoa " }4d. " I 

Tea " 3^d. " i 

Bread and Butter, Jam, or Marmalade 
per slice J^ 



Soup in own Jugs, id. per Quart. 
Ready at 10 A. M. 

A certain discretionary power is vested in the Officers 
in charge of the Depot, and they can in very urgent 
cases give relief, but the rule is for the food to be paid 
for, and the financial results show that working expenses 
are just about covered. 

These Cheap Food Depots, I have no doubt, have been 
and are of great service to numbers of hungry, starving 
men, women, and children, at the prices just named, 
which must be within the reach of all, except the abso- 
lutely penniless; but it is the Shelter that I regard as 
the most useful feature in this part of our undertaking, 
for if anything is to be done to get hold of those who 
use the Depot, some more favorable opportunity must 
be afforded than is offered by the mere coming into the 
food store to get, perhaps, only a basin of soup. This 



133 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

part of the Scheme I propose to extend very considerably. 
Suppose that you are a casual in the streets of London, 
homeless, friendless, weary with looking for work all 
day and finding none. Night comes on. Where are you 
to go? You have perhaps only a few coppers, or it may 
be, few shillings, left of the rapidly dwindling store of 
your little capital. You shrink from sleeping in the 
open air; you equally shrink from going to the fourpenny 
Doss-house, where, in the midst of strange and ribald 
company, you may be robbed of the remnant of the money 
still in your possession. While at a loss as to what to 
do, someone who sees you suggests that you should go 
to our Shelter. You cannot, of course, go to the Casual 
Ward of the Workhouse as long as you have any money 
in your possession. You come along to one of our 
Shelters. On entering you pay fourpence, and are free 
of the establishment for the night. You can come in 
early or late. The company begins to assemble about 
five o'clock in the afternoon. In the women's Shelter 
you find that many come much earlier and sit sewing, 
reading, or chatting in the sparely furnished but well- 
warmed loom from the early hours of the afternoon until 
bedtime. 

You come in, and you get a large pot of coffee, tea, or 
cocoa and a hunk of bread. You can go into the wash- 
house, where you can have a wash with plenty of warm 
water and soap and towels free. Then, after having 
washed and eaten, you can make yourself comfortable. 
You can write letters to your friends, if you have any 
friends to write to, or you can read, or you can sit quietly 
and do nothing. A eight o'clock the Shelter is tolerably 
full, and then begins what we consider to be the indis- 
pensable feature of the whole concern. Two or three 
hundred men in the men's Shelter, or as many women in 
the women's Shelter, are collected together, most of 



AND THE WAY OUT l2^ 

them strange to each other, in a large room. They are 
all wretchedly poor — what are you to do with them? 
This is what we do with them: 

We hold a rousing Salvation meeting. The officer 
in charge of the Depot, assisted by detachments from 
the Training Homes, conducts a jovial free-and-easy 
social evening. The girls have their banjos and their 
tambourines, and for a couple of hours you have as lively 
a meeting as you will find in London. There is 
prayer, short and to the point; there are addresses, some 
delivered by the leaders of the meeting, but the most 
of them the testimonies of those who have been saved 
at previous meetings, and who, rising in their seats, 
tell their companions their experiences. Strange expe- 
riences they often are of those who have been down in 
the very bottomless depths of sin and vice and misery, 
but who have found at last firm footing on which to 
stand, and who are, as they say in all sincerity, "as 
happy as the dav is long." There is a joviality and a 
genuine good fcc:ling at some of these meetings which 
is refreshing to the soul. There are all sorts and con- 
ditions of men: Casuals, jail birds, Out-of-Works, who 
have come there for the first time, and who find men 
who last week or last month were even as they them- 
selves are now — still poor, but rejoicing in a sense of 
brotherhood and a consciousness of their bein^ no longer 
outcasts and forlorn in this wide world. There are men 
who have at last seen revive before them a hope of escap- 
ing from that dreadful vortex into which their sins and 
misfortunes had drawn them, and being restored to those 
comforts that they had feared so long were gone forever; 
nay, of rising to live a true and Godly life. These tell 
their mates how this has come about, and urge all who 
hear them to try for themselves and see whether it is not a 
good and happy thing to be soundly saved. In the in- 



124 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

tervals of testimony — and these testimonies, as everyone 
will bear me witness who has ever attended any of our 
meetings, are not long, sanctimonious lackadaisical 
speeches, but simple confessions of individual experience 
— there are bursts of hearty melody. The conductor of 
the meeting will start up a verse or two of a hymn illus- 
trative of the experiences mentioned by the last speaker, 
or one of the girls from the Training Home will sing a 
solo, accompanying herself on her instrument, while all 
join in a rattling and rollicking chorus. 

There is no compulsion upon anyone of our dossers to 
take part in this meeting; they do not need to come in 
until it is over; but as a simple matter of fact, they do 
come in. Any night between eight and ten o'clock you 
will find these people sitting there, listening to the 
exhortations and taking part in the singing, many of 
them, no doubt, unsympathetic enough, but nevertheless 
preferring to be present with the music and the warmth, 
mildly stirred, if only by curiosity, as the various tes- 
timonies are delivered. 

Sometimes these testimonies are enough to rouse the 
most cynical of observers. We had at one of our Shel- 
ters the captain of an ocean steamer, who had sunk to 
the depths of destitution through strong drink. He 
came in there one night utterly desperate, and was taken 
in hand by our people — and with us taking in hand is no 
mere phrase, for at the close of our meetings our officers 
go from seat to seat, and if they see anyone who shows 
signs of being affected by the speeches or the singing, 
at once sit down beside him and begin to labor with 
him for the salvation of his soul. By this means they 
are able to get hold of the men and to know exactly 
where +he difficulty lies, what the trouble is, and if they 
do nothing else, at least succeed in convincing them 



AND THE WAY OUT 125 

that there Is someone who cares for their soul and would 
do what he could to lend them a helping hand. 

The captain of whom I was speaking was got hold of 
in this way. He was deeply impressed, and was induced 
to abandon once and for all his habits of intemperance. 
From that meeting he went an altered man. He regained 
his position in the merchant service, and twelve months 
afterwards astonished us all by appearing in the uniform 
of a captain of a large ocean steamer, to testify to those 
who were there how low he had been, how utterly he 
had lost all hold on Society and all hope of the future, 
when, fortunately led to the Shelter, he found friends, 
counsel, and salvation, and from that time had never 
rested until he had regained the position which he had 
forfeited b^ his intemperance. 

The meeting over, the singing girls go back to the 
Training Home, and the men prepare for bed. Our 
sleeping arrangements are somewhat primitive; we do 
not provide feather-beds, and when you go into our dor- 
mitories, you will be surprised to find the floor covered 
by what looks like an endless array of packing-cases. 
These are our beds, and each of them forms a cubicle. 
There is a mattress laid on the floor, and over the mat- 
tress a leather apron, which is all the bedclothes that 
we find it possible to provide. The men undress, each 
by the side of his packing-box, and go to sleep under 
their leather covering. The dormitory is warmed with 
hot-water pipes to a temperature of 60 degrees, and 
there has never been any complaint of lack of warmth on 
the part of those who use the Shelter. The leather can 
be kept perfectly clean, and the mattresses, covered 
with American cloth, are carefully inspected every day, 
so that no stray specimen of vermin may be left in the 
place. The men turn in about ten o'clock and sleep 
until six. We have never any disturbances of any kind 



126 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

in the Shelters. We have provided accommodation 
now for several thousand of the most helplessly broken- 
down men in London, criminals many of them, mendi- 
cants, tramps, those who are among the filth and offscour- 
ing of all things; but such is the influence that is estab- 
lished by the meeting and the moral ascendancy of our 
officers themselves, that we have never had a fight on 
the premises, and very seldom do we ever hear an oath 
or an obscene word. Sometimes there has been trouble 
outside the Shelter, when men insisted upon coming in 
drunk or were otherwise violent; but once let them come 
to the Shelter, and get into the swing of the concern, 
*nd we have no trouble with them. In the mcwrning they 
get up and have their breakfast, and, after a short serv- 
ice, go off their various ways. 

We find that we can do this — that is to say, we can 
provide coffee and bread for breakfast and for supper, 
and a shake-down on the floor in the packing-boxes I have 
described in a warm dormitory for fourpence a head. 

I propose to develop these Shelters, so as to afford 
every man a locker, in which he could store any little 
valuables that he may possess. I would also allow him 
the use of a boiler in the wash-house with a hot drying 
oven, so that he could wash his shirt over-night and 
have it returned to him dry in the morning. Only those 
who have had practical experience of the difficulty of 
seeking for work in London can appreciate the advantages 
of the opportunity to get your shirt washed in this way 
— if you have one. In Trafalgar Square, in 1887, there 
were few things that scandalized the public more than 
the spectacle of the poor people camped in the Square, 
-washing their shirts in the early morning at the fount- 
ains. If you talk to any men who have been on the 
road for a lengthened period they will tell you that noth- 
ing hurts their self-respect more or stands more fatally 



AND THE WAY OUT " 127 

in the way of their getting a job than the impossibility 
of getting their little things done up and clean. 

In our poor man's "Home" everyone could at least 
keep himself clean and have a clean shirt to his back, 
in a plain way, no doubt; but still not less effective 
than if he were to be put up at one of the West End 
hotels, and would be able to secure anyway the necessa- 
ries of life while being passed on to something far bet- 
ter. This is the first step. 

SOME SHELTER TROPHIES 

Of the practical results which have followed our meth- 
ods of dealing with the outcasts who take shelter with 
us, we have many striking examples. Here are a fevT, 
each of them a transcript of a life experience relating to 
men who are now active, industrious members of the 
community upon which, but for the agency of these De- 
pots, they would have been preying to this day: 

A. S. — Born in Glasgow, 1825; saved at Clerkenwell, 
May 19, 1889. Poor parents; raised in a Glasgow Slum. 
Was thrown on the streets at seven years of age, be- 
came the companion and associate of thieves, and drifted 
into crime. The following are his terms of imprison- 
ment: 14 days, 30 days, 30 days, 60 days, 60 days (three 
times in succession), 4 months, 6 months (twice), 9 
months, 18 months, 2 years, 6 years, 7 years (twice), 14 
years; 40 years 3 months and 6 days in the aggregate. 
Was flogged for violent conduct in jail 8 times. 

W. M. ("Buff").— Born in Deptford, 1864. Saved at 
Clerkenwell, March 31, 1889. His father was an old 
Navy man, and earned a decent living as manager. Was 
sober, respectable, and trustworthy. Mother was a dis- 
reputable drunken slattern, a curse and disgrace to hus- 
band and family. The home was broken up, and little 
Buff was given over to the evil influences of his de- 
praved mother. His 7th birthday present from his admir- 
ing parent was a "quarten o' gin." He got some educa- 
tion at the One Tun Alley Ragged School, but when 
9 years old was caught apple-stealing, and sent to 



128. tN DARKEST ENGLAND 

the Industrial School at liford for 7 years. Discharged 
at the end of his term, he drifted to the streets, the 
casual wards, and Metropolitan jails, every one of whose 
interiors he is familiar with. He became a ringleader 
of a gang that infested London; a thorough mendicant 
and ne'er-do-well; a pest to society. Naturally he is a 
born leader, and one of those spirits that command a fol- 
lowing; consequently, when he got Salvation, the major 
part of his following came after him to the Shelter, and 
eventually to God. His character since conversion has 
been altogether satisfactory, and he is now an Orderly 
at Whitechapel, and to all appearances a "true lad." 

C. W. ("Frisco"). — Born in San Francisco, 1862; 
saved April 24, 1889. Taken away from home at the 
age of 8 years, and made his way to Texas. Here he 
fook up life amongst the Ranches as a Cowboy, and 
varied it with occasional trips to sea, developing into a 
typical brass and rowdy. He had 2 years for mutiny at 
sea, 4 years for mule-stealing, 5 years for cattle-stealing, 
and has altogether been in jail for 13 years and 
II months. He came over to England, got mixed up 
with thieves and casuals here, and did several short terms 
of imprisonment. He was met on his release at Millbank 
by an old chum (Buff) and the Shelter Captain; came 
to Shelter, got saved, and has stood firm. 

H. A. — Born at Deptford, 1850. Saved at Clerken- 
well, January 12th, i88g. Lost mother in early life, step- 
mother difficulty supervening, and a propensity to misap- 
propriation of small things developed into thieving. 
He followed the sea, became a hard drinker, a foul- 
mouthed blasphemer, and a blatant spouter of infidelity. 
He drifted about for years, ashore and afloat, and eventu- 
ally reached the Shelter stranded. Here he sought God, 
and has done well. This summer he had charge of a 
gang of haymakers sent into the country, and stood the 
ordeal satisfactorily. He seems honest in his profession, 
and strives patiently to follow after God. He is at the 
workshops. 

H. S. — Born at A — , in Scotland. Like most Scotch 
lads, although parents were in poor circumstances, he 
managed to get a good education. Early in life he took 
to newspaper work, and picked up the details of the 



AND THE WAY OUT 129 

journalistic profession in several promi.:cr:t papers in N. 
B. Eventually he got a position on a provincial news- 
paper, and having put in a course at Glasojow University, 
graduated B. A. there. After this he was on the staff 
of a Welsh paper. He married a decent girl, and had 
several little ones, but giving way to drink, lost posi- 
tion, wife, family, and friends. At times he would 
struggle up and recover himself, and appears generally to 
have been able to secure a position, but again and again 
his besetment overcame him, and each time he would 
drift lower and lower. For a time he was engaged in 
secretarial work on a prominent London Charity, but fell 
repeatedly, and at length was dismissed. He came to 
us an utter outcast, was sent to Shelter and Workshop, 
got saved, and is now in a good situation. He gives 
every promise, and those best able to judge seem very 
sanguine that at last a real good work has been accom- 
plished in him. 

F. D. — Was born in London, and brought up to the iron 
trade. Held several good situations, losing one after 
another, from drink and irregularity. On one occasion, 
with ^20 in his pocket, he started for Manchester, got 
drunk there, was locked up and fined five shillings, and 
fifteen shillings costs; t-his he paid, and as he was leav- 
ing the Court, a gentleman stopped him, saying that he 
knew his father, and inviting him to his house; how- 
ever, with ^10 in his pocket, he was too independent, 
and he declined; but the gentleman gave him his 
address, and left him. A few days squandered his cash, and 
clothes soon followed, all disappearing for drink, and 
then without a coin he presented himself at the address 
given to him, at ten o'clock at night. It turned out to 
be his uncle, who gave him £^0. to go back to London, 
but this too disappeared for liquor. He tramped back 
to London utterly destitute. Several nights were passed 
on the Embankment, and on one occasion a gentleman 
gave him a ticket for the Shelter; this, however, he sold 
for 2d. and had a pint of beer, and stopped out all night. 
But it set him thinking, and he determined next day to 
raise 4d. and see what a Shelter was like. He came to 
Whitechapel, became a regular customer, eight months 
ago got saved, and is now doing well. 

9 



130 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

F. H. — Was born at Birmingham, 1858. Saved at 
Whitechapel, March 26th, 1890. Father died in his in- 
fancy, mother marrying again. The stepfather was a 
drunken navvy, and used to knock the mother about, and 
the lad was left to the streets. At 12 years of age he 
left home, and tramped to Liverpool, begging his way, 
and sleeping on the roadsides. In Liverpool he lived 
about the Docks for some days, sleeping where he could. 
Police found him and returned him to Birmingham; his 
reception being an unmerciful thrashing from the 
drunken stepfather. He got several jobs as errand-boy; 
remarkable for his secret pilferings, and two years later 
left with fifty shillings stolen money, and reached Mid- 
dlebrough by road. Got work in a nail factory, staid 
nine months, then stole nine shillings from fellow-lodger, 
and again took the road. He reached Birmingham, 
and finding a warrant out for him, joined the Navy. 
He was in the Impregnable training-ship three years, be- 
haved himself, only getting "one dozen," and was trans- 
ferred, with character marked "good," to the h'07i Duke'in 
the China seas; soon got drinking, and was locked up and 
imprisoned for riotous conduct in almost every port in 
the stations. He broke ship, and deserted several times, 
and was a thorough specimen of a bad British tar. He 
saw jail in Singapore, Hong Kong, Yokohama, Shanghai, 
Canton, and other places. In five years returned home, 
and, after furlough, joined the Belle Isle in the Irish 
station. Whisky here again got hold of him, and excess 
ruined his constitution. On his leave he had married, 
and on his discharge joined his wife in Birmingham. 
For some time he worked as sweeper in the market, but 
two years ago deserted his wife and family, and came to 
London, settled down to a loafer's life, lived on the 
streets with Casual Wards for his home. Eventually 
came to Whitechapel Shelter, and got saved. He is now 
a trustworthy, reliable lad; has become reconciled to 
wife, who came to London to see him, and he bids fair 
to be a useful man. 

J. W. S. — Born in Plymouth. His parents are respect- 
able people. He is clever at his business, and has held 
good situations. Two years ago he came to London, fell 
into evil courses, and took to drink. Lost situation 



AND THE WAY OUT 131 

after situation, and kept on drinking; lost everything, 
and came to the streets. He found out Westminster 
Shelter, and eventually got savedj his parents were com- 
municated with, and help and clothes forthcoming; with 
Salvation came hope and energy; he got a situation at 
Lewisham (yd. per hour) at his trade. Four months 
standing, and is a promising Soldier, as well as a respect- 
able mechanic. 

J. T.— Born in Ireland; well educated (commercially) ; 
clerk and accountant. Early in life joined the Queen's 
Army, and by good conduct worked his way up. Was 
orderly-room clerk and paymaster's assistant in his regi- 
ment. He led a stead}^ life whilst in the service, and at 
the expiration of his term passed into the Reserve with 
a "very good" character. He was a long time unem- 
ployed, and this appears to have reduced him to despair, 
and so to drink. He sank to the lowest ebb, and came 
to Westminster in a deplorable condition: coatless, hat- 
less, shirtless, dirty altogether, a fearful specimen of 
what a man of good parentage can be brought to. After 
being at Shelter some time, he got saved, was passed to 
Workshops, and gave great satisfaction. At present he 
is doing clerical work and gives satisfaction as a work- 
man — a good influence in the place. 

J. S. — Born in London, of decent parentage. From a 
child he exhibited thieving propensities; soon got into the 
hands of the police, cand was in and out of jail continu- 
ally. He led the life of a confirmed tramp, and roved 
all over the United Kingdom. He has been in penal 
servitude three times, and his last term was for seven 
years, with police supervision. After his release he 
married a respectable girl and tried to reform, but cir- 
cumstances were against him ; character he had none, a 
jail career only to recommend him, and so he and his 
wife eventually drifted to destitution. They came to 
the Shelter, and asked advice; they were received, and 
he made application to the sitting Magistrate at Clerk- 
enwell as to a situation, and what he ought to do. The 
Magistrate helped him, and thanked the Salvation 
Army for its efforts in behalf of him and such as he, and 
asked us to look after the applicant. A little work was 
given him, and after a time a good situation procured. 



132 rJ DARKEST ENGLAND 

To-day they have a good time; he is steadily employed, 
and both are serving God, holding the respect and confi- 
dence of neighbors, etc. 

E. G. — Came to England in the service of a family of 
position, and afterwards was butler and upper servant in 
several houses of the nobility. His health broke down, 
and for a long time he was altogether unfit for work. 
He had saved a considerable sum of money, but the cost 
of doctors and the necessaries of a sick man soon played 
havoc with his little store, and he became reduced to 
penury and absolute want. For some time he was in 
the Workhouse, and, being discharged, he was advised 
to go to the Shelter. He was low in health as well as 
in circumstances, and broken in spirit, almost despair- 
ing. He was lovingly advised to cast his care upon 
God, and eventually he was converted. After some time 
work was obtained as porter in a City warehouse. Assi- 
duity and faithfulness in a year raised him to the posi- 
tion of traveler. To-day he prospers in body and soul, 
retaining the respect and confidence of all associated 
with him. 

We might multiply these records, but those given show 
the kind of results attained. 

There's no reason to think that influences which have 
been blessed of God to the salvation of these poor fellows 
will not be equally efficacious if applied on a wider 
scale and over a vaster area. The thing to be noted in all 
these cases is that it was not the mere feeding which ef- 
fected the result; it was the combination of the feeding 
with the personal labor for the individual soul. Still, if 
we had not fed them, we should never have come near 
enough to gain any hold upon their hearts. If we had 
merely fed them, they would have gone away next day to 
resume, with increased energy, the predatory and vagrant 
life which they had been leading. But when our Feed- 
ing and Shelter Depots brought them to close quarters, 
our ofiicers were literally able to put their arms round 
their necks and plead with them as brethren who had gone 



AND THE WAY OUT 133 

astray. We told them that their sins and sorrows had not 
shut them out from the love of the Everlasting Father, 
who had sent us to them to help them with all the 
power of our strong organization, of the Divine authority 
of which we never feel so sure as when it is going forth 
to seek and to save the lost. 

Section II.— WORK FOR THE OUT-OF-WORKS— 
THE FACTORY 

The foregoing, it will be said, is all very well for your 
outcast when he has got fourpence in his pocket, but 
what if he has not got his fourpence? What if you are 
confronted with a crowd of hungry, desperate wretches, 
without even a penny in their pouch, demanding food 
and shelter? This objection is natural enough, and has 
been duly considered from the first. 

I propose to establish in connection with every Food 
and Shelter Depot a Workshop or Il^abor Yard, in which 
any person who comes destitute and starving will be sup- 
plied with sufficient work to enable him to earn the 
fourpence needed for his bed and board. This is a funda- 
mental feature of the Scheme, and one which I think 
will commend it to all those who are anxious to benefit 
the poor by enabling them to help themselves without 
the demoralizing intervention of charitable relief. 

Let us take our stand for a moment at the door qf one 
of our Shelters. There comes along a grimy, ragged, foot- 
sore tramp, his feet bursting out from the sides of his 
shoes, his clothes all rags, with filthy shirt and tow- 
seled hair. He has been, he tells you, on the tramp 
for the last three weeks, seeking work and finding none, 
slept last night on the Embankment, and wants to know 
if you can give him a bite and a sup, and shelter for 
the night. Has he any money? Not he; he probably 



134 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Spent the last penny he begged or earned in a pipe of 
tobacco, with which to dull the cravings of his hungry 
stomach. What are you to do with this man? 

Remember this is no fancy sketch — it is a typical 
case. There are hundreds and thousands of such appli- 
cants. Anyone who is at all familiar with life in Lon- 
don and our other large towns, will recognize that gaunt 
figure standing there asking for bread and shelter, or for 
work by which he can obtain bcth. What can we do 
with him? Before him Society stands paralyzed, quiet- 
ing its conscience every now and then by an occasional 
dole of bread and soup, varied with the semi-criminal 
treatment of the Casual Ward, until the manhood is 
crushed out of the man, and you have in your hands a 
reckless, despairing, spirit-broken creature, with not even 
an aspiration to rise above his miserable circumstances, 
covered with vermin and filth, sinking ever lower and 
lower, until at last he is hurried out of sight in the 
rough shell which carries him to a pauper's grave. 

I propose to take that man, put a strong arm round 
him, and extricate him from the mire in which he is all 
but suffocated. As a first step we will say to him, "You 
are hungry, here is food; you are homeless, here is a 
shelter for your head; but remember you must work for 
your rations. This is not charity; it is work for the 
workless, help for those who cannot help themselves. 
There is the labor-shed, go and earn your fourpence, and 
then come in out of the cold and the wet into the warm 
shelter; here is your mug of coffee and your great chunk 
of bread, and after you have finished these there is a 
meeting going on in full swing, with its joyful music and 
hearty human intercourse. There are those who pray for 
you and with you, and will make you feel yourself a 
brother amoBg^,men. There is your shake-down on the 
floor^ where you will have your warm, c^uiet bed, undi§? 



AND THE WAY OUT 135 

turbed by the ribaldry and curses with which you have 
been familiar too long. There is the wash-house, where 
you can have a thorough wash-up at last, after all these 
days of unwashedness. There is plenty of soap and 
warm water and clean towels; there, too, you can wash 
your shirt and have it dried while you sleep. In the 
morning when you get up there will be breakfast for you, 
and your shirt will be dry and clean. Then, when you 
are washed and rested, and are no longer faint with 
hunger, you can go and seek a job, or go back to the 
Labor Shop until something better turn up." 

But where and how? 

Now let me introduce you to our Labor Yard. Here 
is no pretense of charity beyond the charity which gives 
a man remunerative labor. It is not our business to 
pay men wages. What we propose is to enable those, 
male or female, who are destitute, to earn their rations 
and do enough work to pay for their lodging until they 
are able to go out into the world and earn wages for 
themselves. There is no compulsion upon anyone to 
resort to our shelter, but if a penniless man wants food, 
he must, as a rule, do work sufficient to pay for what 
he has of that and of other accommodation. I say as a 
rule, because, of course, our Officers will be allowed to 
make exceptions in extreme cases; but tie rule will be 
first work, then eat. And that amount of work will be 
exacted rigorously. It is that which distinguishes this 
Scheme from mere charitable relief. 

I do not wish to have any hand in establishing a new 
centre of demoralization. I do not want my customers 
to be pauperized by being treated to anything which 
they do not earn. To develop self-respect in the man, 
to make him feel that at last he has got his foot 
planted on the first rung of the ladder which leads up- 
wards, is vitally important, and this cannot be done un- 



136 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

less the bargain between him and me is strictly carried 
out. So much coffee, so much bread, so much shelter, 
so much warmth and light from me, but so much labor 
in return from him. 

What labor? it is asked. For answer to this question 
I would like to take you down to our Industrial Work- 
shops in Whitechapel. There you will see the Scheme 
in experimental operation. What we are doing there we 
propose to do everywhere up to the extent of the neces- 
sity, and there is no reason why we should fail elsewhere 
if we can succeed there. 

Our Industrial Factory at Whitechapel was established 
this Spring. We opened it on a very small scale. It 
has developed until we have nearly ninety men at work. 
Some of these are skilled workmen who are engaged in 
carpentry. The particular job they have now in hand is 
the making of benches for the Salvation Army. Others 
are engaged in mat-making, some are cobblers, others 
painters, and so forth. This trial effort has, so far, an- 
swered admirably. No one who is taken on comes for a 
permanency. So long as he is willing to work for his 
rations he is supplied with materials and provided with 
skilled superintendents. The hours of work are eight 
per day. Here are the rules and regulations under which 
the work is carried on at present: 

THE SALVATION ARMY SOCIAL REFORM WING 

Temporary Headquarters, 

36, Upper Thames Street, London, E. C. 

CITY INDUSTRIAL WORKSHOPS 

Objects. — These workshops are open for the relief of 
the unemployed and destitute, the object being to make 
it unnecessary for the homeless or workless to be com- 
pelled to go to the Workhouse or Casual Ward, food and 
shelter being provided for them in exchange for work 



AND THE WAY OUT 137 

done by them, until they can procure work for them- 
selves, or it can be found for them elsewhere. 

Plan of Operation. — All those applying for assistance 
will be placed in what is termed the first class. They 
must be willing to do any kind of work allotted to them. 
While they remain in the first class, they shall be en- 
titled to three meals a day and shelter for the night, 
and will be expected in return to cheerfully perform the 
work allotted to them. 

Promotions will be made from this first class to the 
second class of all those considered eligible by the La- 
bor Directors. They will, in addition to the food and 
shelter above mentioned, receive sums of mioney up to 
5s. at the end of the week, for the purpose of assisting 
them to provide themselves with tools, to get work out- 
side. 

Regulations. — No smoking, drinking, bad language, or 
conduct calculated to demoralize will be permitted on 
the factory premises. No one under the influence of 
drink will be admitted. Any one refusing to work, or 
guilty of bad conduct, will be required to leave the prem- 
ises. 

Hours of Work. — 7 a. m. to 8.30 a. m. ; 9 a. m. to i 
p. M. j 2 p. M. to 5.30 p. M. Doors will be closed 5 min- 
utes after 7, 9, and 2 p. m. Food Checks will be given 
to all as they pass out at each meal-time. Meals and 
Shelter provided at 272, Whitechapel Road. 

Our practical experience shows that we can provide 
work by which a man can earn his rations. We shall be 
careful not to sell the goods so manufactured at less 
than the market prices. In firewood, for instance, we 
have endeavored to be rather above the average than be- 
low it. As stated elsewhere, we are firmly opposed to 
injuring one class of workmen while helping another. 

Attempts on somewhat similar lines to those now be- 
ing described have hitherto excited the liveliest feelings 
of jealousy on the part of the Trade Unions and represent- 
atives of labor. They rightly consider it unfair that 



138 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

labor partly paid for out of the Rates and Taxes, or Dy 
Charitable Contributions, should be put upon the market 
at less than market value, and so compete unjustly with 
the production of those who have in the first instance to 
furnish an important quota of the funds by which these 
Criminal or Pauper workers are supported. No such 
jealousy can justly exist in relation to our Scheme, see- 
ing that we are endeavoring to raise the standard of labor 
and are pledged to a war to the death against sweating 
in every shape and form. 

But, it will be asked, how do these Out-of-Works con- 
duct themselves when you get them into the Factory? 

Upon this point I have a very satisfactory report to 
render. Many, no doubt, are below par, underfed, and 
suffering from ill health, or the consequence of their in- 
temperance. Many also are old men, who have been 
crowded out of the labor market by the younger gen- 
eration. But, without making too many allowances on 
these grounds, I may fairly say that these men have 
shown themselves not only anxious and willing, but able 
to work. Our Factory Superintendent reports: 

Of loss of time there has practically been none since 
the opening, June 29th. Each man during his stay, with 
hardly an exception, has presented himself punctually 
at opening time and worked more or less assiduously the 
whole of the labor hours. The morals of the men have 
been good; in not more than three instances has there 
been an overt act of disobedience, insubordination, or 
mischief. The men, as a whole, are uniformly civil, 
willing, and satisfied; they are all fairly industrious; 
some, and that not a few, are assiduous and energetic. 
The Foremen have had no serious complaints to make or 
delinquencies to report. 

On the 15th of August I had a return made of the 
names and trades and mode of employment of the men 
?Lt work. Of the forty in the shops at that moment, eight 



AND THE WAY OUT 139 

were carpenters, twelve laborers, two tailors, two sail- 
ors, three clerks, two engineers, while among the rest 
was a shoemaker, two grocers, a cooper, a sailmaker, a 
musician, a painter, and a stonemason. Nineteen of these 
were employed in sawing, cutting, and tying up firewood, 
six were making mats, seven making sacks, and the rest 
were employed in various odd jobs. Among them was a 
Russian carpenter who could not speak a word of English. 
The whole place is a hive of industry which fills the 
hearts of those who go to see it with hope that something 
is about to be done to solve the difficulty of the unem- 
ployed. 

Although our Factories will be permanent institutions, 
they will not be anything more than temporary resting- 
places to those who avail themselves of their advantages. 
They are harbors of refuge into which the storm-tossed 
workman may run and re-fit, so that he may again push 
out to the ordinary sea of labor and earn his living. 
The establishment of these Industrial Factories seems 
to be one of the most obvious duties of those who would 
effectually deal with the Social Problem. They are as 
indispensable a link in the chain of deliverance as the 
Shelters, but they are only a link, and not a stopping- 
place. And we do not propose that they should be re- 
garded as anything but stepping-stones to better things. 

These Shops will also be of service for men and women 
temporarily unemployed who have families, and who 
possess some sort of a home. In numerous instances, if 
by any means these unfortunates could find bread and 
rent for a few weeks, they would tide over their difficul- 
ties, and an untold amount of misery would be averted. 
In such cases Work would be supplied at their own homes 
where preferred, especially for the women and children, 
and such remuneration would be aimed at as would sup- 
ply the immediate necessities of the hour. To those 



140 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

who nave rent to pay and families to support, something 
beyond rations would be indispensable. 

The Labor Shops will enable us to work out our Anti- 
Sweating experiments. For instance, we propose at 
once to commence manufacturing match-boxes, for which 
we shall aim at giving nearly treble the amount at 
present paid to the poor starving creatures engaged in 
this work. 

In all these workshops Our success will depend upon the 
extent to which we are able to establish and maintain 
in the minds of the workers sound moral sentiments and 
to cultivate a spirit of hopefulness and aspiration. We 
shall continually seek to impress upon them the fact that 
while we desire to feed the hungry, and clothe the 
naked, and provide shelter for the shelterless, we are 
still more anxious to bring about that regeneration of 
heart and life which is essential to their future happi- 
ness and well-being. 

But no compulsion will for a moment be allowed with 
respect to religion. The man who professes to love and 
serve God will be helped because of such profession, and 
the man who does not will be helped in the hope thai 
he will, sooner or later, in gratitude to God, do the same; 
but there will be no melancholy misery-making for any. 
There is no sanctimonious long face in the Army. We 
talk freely about Salvation, because it is to us the very 
light and joy of our existence. We are happy, and we 
wish others to share our joy. We know by our own ex- 
perience that life is a very different thing when we have 
found the peace of God, and are working together with 
Him for the salvation of the world, instead of toiling 
for the realization of worldly ambition or the amassing 
of earthly gain. 



AND THE WAY OU 1 141 

Section III.— THE REGIMENTATION OF THE 
UNEMPLOYED 

When we have got the homeless, penniless tramp 
washed, and housed, and fed at the Shelter, and have se- 
cured him the means of earning his fourpence by chop- 
ping firewood, or making mats, or cobbling the shoes of 
his fellow-laborers at the Factory, we have next to seri- 
ously address ourselves to the problem of how to help 
him to get back into the regular ranks of industry. The 
Shelter and the Factory are but stepping-stones, which 
have this advantage, they give us time to look round 
and to see what there is in a man and what we can make 
of him. 

The first and most obvious thing to do is to ascertain 
whether there is any demand in the regular market for 
the labor which is thus thrown upon our hands. In order 
to ascertain this, I have already established a Labor 
Bureau, the operations of which I shall at once largely 
extend, at which employers can register their needs, and 
workmen can register their names and the kind of work 
they can do. 

At present there is no labor exchange in existence in 
this country. The columns of the daily newspaper are 
the only substitute for this much-needed register. It is 
one of the many painful consequences arising from the 
overgrowth of cities. In a village, where everybody 
knows everybody else, this necessity does not exist. If 
a farmer wants a couple of extra men for mowing or 
some more women for binding at harvest-time, he runs 
over in his mind the- names of every available person 
in the parish. Even in a small town there is little 
difficulty in knowing who wants employment. But in 
the cities this knowledge is not available; hence we 
constantly hear of persons who would be very glad to 
employ labor for odd jobs in an occasional stress of work, 



142 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

while at the same time hundreds of persons are starving 
for want of work at another end of the town. To meet 
this evil, the laws of Supply and Demand have created 
the Sweating Middlemen, who farm out the unfortunates 
and charge so heavy a commission for their share that 
the poor wretches who do the work receive hardly enough 
to keep body and soul together. I propose to change 
all this by establishing registers which will enable us to 
lay our hands at a moment's notice upon all the unem- 
ployed men in a district in any particular trade. In this 
way we should become the universal intermediary be- 
tween those who have no employment and those who 
want workmen. 

In this we do not propose to supersede or interfere 
with the regular Trade Unions. Where Unions exist we 
should place ourselves in every case in communication 
with their officials. But the most helpless mass of mis- 
ery is to be found among the unorganized laborers who 
have no Union, and who are, therefore, the natural prey 
of the middleman. Take, for instance, one of the most 
wretched classes of the community, the poor fellows who 
perambulate the streets as Sandwich Men. These are 
farmed out by certain firms. If you wish to send fifty or 
a hundred men through London carrying boards an- 
nouncing the excellence of your goods, you go to an ad- 
vertising firm, who will undertake to supply you with as 
many sandwich men as you want for two shillings or 
half a crown a day. The men are forthcoming, your 
goods are advertised, you pay your money, but how much 
of that goes to the men? About- one shilling, or one 
shilling and threepence; the rest goes to the middle- 
man. I propose to supersede this middleman by forming 
a Co-operative Association of Sandwich Men. At every 
Shelter there would be a Sandwich Brigade ready in any 
numbers when wanted. The cost of registration and or- 



AND THE WAY out UW 

ganization, which the men would gladly pay, need not 
certainly amount to more than a penny in the shilling. 
All that is needed is to establish a trustworthy and dis- 
interested centre round which the unemployed can group 
themselves, and which will form the nucleus of a great 
Co-operative Self-helping Association. The advantages 
of such a Bureau are obvious. But in this, also, I do 
not speak from theory. I have behind me the experi- 
ence of seven months of labor both in England and Aus- 
tralia. In London we have a registration office in Up- 
per Thames Street, where the unemployed come every 
morning in droves to register their names and to see 
whether they can obtain situations. In Australia, I see, 
it was stated in the House of Assembly that our Officers 
had been instrumental in finding situations for no less 
than one hundred and thirty-two "Out-of-Works" in a few 
days. Here, in London, we have succeeded in obtaining 
employment for a great number, although, of course, it 
is beyond our power to help all those who apply. We 
have sent haymakers down to the country, and there is 
every reason to believe that when our organization is 
better known, and in more extended operation, we shall 
have a great labor exchange between town and country, 
so that when there is scarcity in one place and conges- 
tion in another, there will be information immediately 
sent, so that the surplus labor can be drafted into those 
districts where labor is wanted. For instance, in the 
harvest seasons, with changeable weather, it is quite a 
common occurrence for the crops to be seriously dam- 
aged for want of laborers, while at the same time there 
will be thousands wandering about in the big towns and 
cities seeking work, but finding no one to hire them. 
Extend this system all over the world, and make it not 
only applicable to the transfer of workers between the 
towns and the provinces, but between Country and 



144 IN Dx\RKEST ENGLAND 

Country, and it is impossible to exaggerate tlie enormous 
advantages which would result. The officer in charge 
of our experimental Labor Bureau sends me the following 
notes as to what has already been done through the agency 
of the Upper Thames Street office; 

SALVATION ARMY SOCIAL REFORM WING 



LABOR BUREAU 

Bureau opened June i8th, 1890. The following are 
particulars of transactions up to September 26th, 1890: 



Applications for Employment— Men 2462 

" " " Women 208 



2670 



Applications from Employers for Men 128 

" " " " Women 59 

_^ 

Sent to Work— Men 301 

" " Women 68 

369 

Permanent Situations 146 

Temporary Employment, viz: — Boardmen, Cleaners, etc. 223 
Sent to Workshop in Hanbury Street 165 

Section IV.— THE HOUSEHOLD SALVAGE 
BRIGADE 

It is obvious that the moment you begin to find work 
for the unemployed labor of the community, no matter 
what you do b}^ way of the registration and bringing to- 
gether of those who want work and those who want 
workers, there will still remain a vast residuum of un- 
employed, and it will be the duty of those who under- 
take to deal with the question to devise means for secur- 
ing them employment. 

Many things are possible when there is a directing in- 
telligence at headquarters and discipline in the rank and 
file, which would be utterly impossible when everyone is 
let to go where he pleases, when ten men are running for 
one man's job, and when no one can be depended upon 



AND THE WAY OUT 145 

to be in the way at the time he is wanted. When my 
Scheme is carried out, there will be in every populous 
centre a Captain of Industry, an Officer specially charged 
with the regimentation of unorganized labor, who would 
be continually on the alert, thinking how best to utilize 
the waste human material in his district. It is contrary 
to all previous experience to suppose that the addition 
of so much trained intelligence will not operate bene- 
ficially in securing the disposal of a commodity which is 
at present a drug in the market. 

Robertson, of Brighton, used frequently to remark that 
every truth was built up of two apparent contradictory 
propositions. In the same way I may say that the solu- 
tion of every social difficulty is to be found in the dis- 
covery of two corresponding difficulties. It is like the 
puzzle maps of children. When you are putting one to- 
gether, you suddenly come upon some awkward piece that 
will not fit in anywhere, but you do not in disgust and 
despair break your piece into fragments or throw it 
away. On the contrary, you keep it by you, knowing 
that before long you will discover a number of other 
pieces which it will be impossible to fit in until you fix 
your unmanageable, unshapely piece in the centre. Now, 
in the work of piecing together the fragments which lie 
scattered round the base of our social system, we must 
not despair because we have in the unorganized, un- 
trained laborers that which seems hopelessly out of fit 
with everything round. There must be something cor- 
responding to it which is equally useless until he can be 
brought to bear upon it. In other words, having got one 
difficulty in the case of the Out-of-Works, we must cast 
about to find another difficulty to pair off against it, and 
then out of two difficulties will arise the solution of the 
problem. 

We shall not have far to seek before we discover in 

10 



146 - IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

every town and in every country the corresponding ele- 
ment to our unemployed laborer. We have waste labor 
on the one hand; we have waste commodities on the 
other. About waste land I shall speak in the next chap- 
ter; I am concerned now solely with waste commodities. 
Herein we have a means of immediately employing a 
large number of men under conditions which will enable 
us to permanently provide for many of those whose hard 
lot we are now considering. 

I propose to establish in every large town what I may 
call "A Household Salvage Brigade," a civil force of 
organized collectors, who will patrol the whole town as 
regularly as the policeman, who will have their appointed 
beats, and each of whom will be entrusted with the task 
of collecting the waste of the houses in their circuit. 
In small towns and villages this is already done, and 
it will be noticed that most of the suggestions which I 
have put forth in this book are based upon the central 
principle, which is that of restoring to the over-grown, 
and, therefore, uninformed masses of population in our 
towns, the same intelligence and co-operation as to the 
mutual wants of each and all, that prevails in your small 
town or village. The latter is the manageable unit, 
because its dimensions and its needs have not outgrown 
the range of the individual intelligence and ability of 
those who dwell therein. Our troubles in large towns 
arise chiefly from the fact that the massing of popula- 
tion has caused the physical bulk of Society to outgrow 
its intelligence. It is as if a human being had suddenly 
developed fresh limbs which were not connected by any 
nervous system with the gray matter of his brain. Such 
a thing is impossible in the human being, but, unfortu- 
nately, it is only too possible in human society. In the 
human body no member can suffer without an instan- 
taneous telegram being dispatched, as it were, to the seat 



AND THE WAY OUT 147 

of intelligence; the foot or the finger cries out when it 
suffers, and the whole body suffers with it. So, in a 
small community, everyone, rich and poor, is more or 
less cognizant of the sufferings of the community. In 
a large town where people have ceased to be neighborly, 
there is only a congested mass of population settled down 
on a certain small area without any human ties connect- 
ing them together. Here it is perfectly possible, and 
it frequently happens, that men actually die of starvation 
within a few doors of those who, if they had been 
informed of the actual condition of the sufferer that lay 
within earshot of their comfortable drawing-rooms, would 
have been eager to minister the needed relief. What we 
have to do, therefore, is to grow a new nervous system 
for the body politic, to create a swift, almost automatic, 
means of communication between the community as a 
whole and the meanest of its members, so as to restore 
to the city what the village possesses. 

I do not say that the plan which I have suggested is 
the only plan, or the best plan conceivable. All that I 
claim for it is that it is the only plan which I can con- 
ceive as practicable at the present moment, and that, as 
a matter of fact, it holds the field alone, for no one, so 
far as I have been able to discover, even proposes to 
reconstitute the connection between what I have called 
the gray matter of the brain of the municipal community 
and all the individual units which make up the body 
politic. 

Carrying out the same idea, I come to the problem 
of the waste commodities of the towns, and we will take 
this as an earnest of the working out of the general 
principle. In the villages there is very little waste. 
The sewage is applied directly to the land, and so be 
comes a source of wealth instead of being entptied into 
great subterranean reservoirs, to generate poisonous 



148 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

gases, which, by a most ingenious arrangement, are then 
poured forth into the very heart of our dwellings, as is 
the case in the great cities. Neither is there any waste 
of broken victuals. The villager has his pig or his 
poultry, or if he has not a pig his neighbor has one, and 
the collection of broken victuals is conducted as regu- 
larly as the delivery of the post. And as it is with 
broken victuals, so it is with rags, and bones, and old 
iron, and all the debris of a household. When I was 
a boy one of the most familiar figures in the streets 
of a country town was the man, who, with his small 
hand-barrow or donkey-cart, made a regular patrol 
through all the streets once a week, collecting rags, 
bones, and all other waste materials, buying the same 
from the juveniles who collected them, in specie, 
not of Her Majesty's current coin, but of common sweet- 
meats, known as "claggum" or "taffy." When the 
tooting of his familiar horn was heard the children 
would bring out their stores, and trade as best ^hey 
could with the itinerant merchant, with the result 
that the closets which in our towns to-day have become 
the receptacles of all kinds of disused lumber were 
kept then swept and garnished. Now, what I want to 
know is, why can we not establish on a scale commensu- 
rate with our extended needs the rag-and-bone industry 
in all our great towns? That there is sufficient to pay 
for the collection is, I think, indisputable. If it paid 
in a small North-country town or Midland village, why 
would it not pay much better in an area where the houses 
stand more closely together, and where luxurious liv- 
ing and thriftless habits have so increased that there 
must be proportionately far more breakage, more waste, 
and therefore more collectible matter, than in the rural 
districts? In looking over the waste of London it has 
occurred to me that in \\\& debris of our households there 



AND THE WAY OUT 149 

is sufficient food, if utilized, to feed many of the starv- 
ing poor, and to employ some thousands of them in its 
collection, and, in addition, largely to assist the general 
scheme. What I propose would be to go to work on 
something like the following plan: 

London would be divided into districts, beginning 
with that portion of it most likely to furnish the larg- 
est supplies of what would be worth collection. Two 
men, or a man and a boy, would be told off for this pur- 
pose to this district. 

Households would be requested to allow a receptacle 
to be placed in some convenient spot in which the serv- 
ants could deposit the waste food, and a sack of som.e 
description would also be supplied for the paper, rags, 
etc. 

The whole would be collected, say once or twice a 
week, or more frequently, according to the season and 
circumstances, and transferred to depots as central as 
possible to the different districts. 

At present much of this waste is thrown into the dust- 
bin, there to fester and breed disease. Then there are old 
newspapers, ragged books, old bottles, tins, canisters, etc. 
We all know what a number of articles there are which 
are not quite bad enough to be thrown into the dust-heap, 
and yet are no good to us. We put them on one side, hop- 
ing that something may turn up, and as that something 
very seldom does turn up, there they remain. Crippled 
musical instruments, for instance, old toys, broken-down 
perambulators, old clothes, all the things in short, for 
which we have no more need, and for which there is no 
market within our reach, but which it we feel would be 
a sin and a shame to destroy. 

When I get my Househ©ld Salvage Brigade properly 
organized, beginning, as I said, in some district where 
we should be likely to meet with most material, our 



150 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

» 

uniformed collectors would call every other day or twice 
a week with their hand barrow or pony cart. As these 
men would be under strict discipline, and numbered, 
the householder would have a security against any abuse 
of which such regular callers might otherwise be the 
occasion. 

At present the rag and bone man who drives the more 
or less precarious livelihood by intermittent visits, is 
looked upon askance by prudent housewives. They fear 
in many cases he takes the refuse in order to have the 
opportunity of finding somethingwhich may be worth while 
"picking up, " and should he be impudent or negligent 
there is no authority to whom they can appeal. Under 
our Brigade, each district would have its numbered officer 
who would himself be subordinate to a superior officer, to 
whom any complaints could be made, and whose duty it 
would be to see that the officers under his command punct 
ually performed their rounds and discharged their duties 
without offense. 

Here let me disclaim any intention of interfering 
with the Little Sisters of the Poor, or any other persons, 
who collect the broken victuals of hotels and other es- 
tablishments for charitable purposes. My object is not 
to poach on my neighbor's domains, nor shall I ever be 
a party to any contentious quarrels for the control of 
this or that source of supply. All that is already util- 
ized I regard as outside my sphere. The unoccupied 
wilderness of waste is a wide enough area for the oper- 
ations of our Brigade. But it will be found in practice 
that there are no competing agencies. While the broken 
victuals of certain large hotels are regularly collected, 
the things before enumerated, and a number of others, 
are untouched because not sought after. 

Of the immense extent to which Food is wasted few 
people have any notion except those who have made 



AND THE WAY OUT 151 

actual experiments. Some years ago, Lady Wolseley 
established a system of collection from house to house 
in Mayfair, in order to secure materials for a charitable 
kitchen which, in concert with Baroness Burdett-Coutts, 
she had started at Westminster. The amount of the 
food which she gathered was enormous. Sometimes legs 
of mutton from which only one or two slices had been 
cut were thrown into the tub, where they waited for 
the arrival of the cart on its rounds. It is by no means 
an excessive estimate to assume that the waste of the 
kitchens of the West End would provide a sufficient 
sustenance for all the Out-of-Works who will be em- 
ployed in our labor sheds at the industrial centres. All 
that it needs is collection, prompt, systematic, by dis- 
ciplined men who can be relied upon to discharge their 
task with punctuality and civility, and whose failure in 
this duty can be directly brought to the attention of the 
controlling authority. 

Of the utilization of much of the food which is to be 
so collected I shall speak hereafter, when I come to 
describe the second great division of my Scheme, namely 
the Farm Colony. Much of the food collected by the 
Household Salvage Brigade would not be available for 
human consumption. In this the greatest care would be 
exercised, and the remainder would be dispatched, if pos- 
sible, by barges down the river to the Farm Colony, where 
we shall meet it hereafter. 

But food is only one of the materials -which we should 
handle. At our Whitechapel Factory there is one shoe- 
maker whom we picked off the streets destitute and mis- 
erable. He is now saved, and happy, and cobbles away 
at the shoe leather of his mates. That shoemaker, I 
foresee, is but the pioneer of a whole army of shoe- 
makers constantly at work in repairing the cast-off boots 
and shoes of London. Already in some provincial towns 



152 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

a great business is done by the conversion of old shoes 
into new. They call the men so employed translators. 
Boots and shoes, as every wearer of them knows, do not 
go to pieces all at once or in all parts at once. The 
sole often wears out utterly, while the upper leather 
is quite good, or the upper leather bursts while the sole 
remains practically in a salvable condition; but your 
individual pair of shoes and boots are no good to you 
when any section of them is hopelessly gone to the bad. 
But give our trained artist in leather and his army of 
assistants a couple of thousand pairs of boots and shoes, 
and it will go ill with him if out of the couple of thou- 
sand pairs of wrecks he cannot construct five hundred 
pairs, which, if not quite good, will be immeasurably 
better than the apologies for boots which cover the feet 
of many a poor tramp, to say nothing of the thousands 
of poor children who are at the present moment attending 
our public schools. In some towns they have already 
established a Boot and Shoe Fund in order to provide 
the little ones who come to school with shoes warranted 
not to let in water between the school house and home. 
When you remember the 43,000 children who are reported 
by the School Board to- attend the schools of London 
alone unfed and starving, do you not think there are many 
thousands to whom we could easily dispose, with ad- 
vantage, the resurrected shoes of our Boot Factory? 

This, however, is only one branch of industry. Take 
old umbrellas. We all know the itinerant umbrella 
mender, whose appearance in the neighborhood of the 
farmhouse leads the good wife to look after her poultry 
and to see well to it that the watch-dog is on the 
premises. But that gentleman is almost the only agency 
by which old umbrellas can be rescued from the dust 
heap. Side by side with our Boot Factory we shall have 
a great umbrella works. The ironwork of one umbrella 



AND THE WAY OUT 153 

will be fitted to the stick of another, and even from 
those that are too hopelessly gone for any further use as 
umbrellas we shall find plenty of use for their steels 
and whalebone. 

So I might go on. Bottles are a fertile source of 
minor domestic worry. When you buy a bottle you have 
to pay a penny for it; but when you have emptied it 
you cannot get a penny back; no, nor even a farthing. 
You throw your empty bottle either into the dust heap, 
or let it lie about. But if we could collect all the waste 
bottles of London every day, it would go hardly with 
us if we could not turn a very pretty penny by v/ashing 
them, sorting them, and sending them out on a new 
lease of life. The washing of old bottles alone will 
keep a considerable number of people going. 

I can imagine the objection which will be raised by 
some short-sighted people, that by giving the old, second- 
hand material a new lease of life it will be said that we 
shall diminish the demand for new material, and so cur- 
ail work and wages at one end while we are endeavoring 
to piece on something at the other. This objection re- 
minds me of a remark of a North Country pilot who 
when speaking of the dullness in the shipbuilding in- 
dustry, said that nothing would do any good but a series 
of heavy storms, which would send a goodly number of 
ocean-going steamers to the bottom, to replace which, 
this political economist thought, the yards would once 
more be filled with orders. This, however, is not the 
way in which work is supplied. Economy is a great 
auxiliary to trade, inasmuch as the money saved is ex- 
pended on other products of industry. 

There is one material that is continually increasing in 
quantity, which is the despair of the life of the house- 
holder and of the Local Sanitary Authority. I refer to 
the tins in which provisions are supplied. Nowadays 



1.54 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

everything comes to us in tins. We have coffee tins, 
meat tins, salmon tins, and tins ad nausea77i. Tin is be- 
coming more and more the universal envelope of the ra- 
tions of man. But v^hen you have extracted the contents 
of the tin what can you do with it? Huge mountains of 
empty tins lie about every dustyard, for as yet no man 
has discovered a means of utilizing them when in great 
masses. Their market price is about four or five shil- 
lings a ton, but they are so light that it would take half 
a dozen trucks to hold a ton. They formerly burnt them 
for the sake of the solder, but now, by a new process, 
they are jointed without solder. The problem of the 
utilization of the tins is one to which we would have to 
address ourselves, and I am by no means desponding as 
to the result. 

I see in the old tins of London at least one means of 

a 

establishing an industry which is at present almost 
monopolized by our neighbors. Most of the toys which 
are sold in France on New Year's Day are almost entirely 
made of sardine cans collected in the French capital. 
The toy market of England is at present far from being 
over-stocked, for there are multitudes of children who have 
no toys worth speaking of with which to am^use them- 
selves. In these empty tins I see the means of employ- 
ing a large number of people in turning out cheap toys 
which will add a new joy to the households of the poor 
— the poor to whom every farthing is important, not the 
rich, the rich can always get toys — but the children of 
the poor, who live in one room and have nothing to look 
out upon but the slum or the street. These desolate 
little things need our toys, and if supplied cheap 
enough they will take them in sufficient quantities to 
make it worth while to manufacture them. 

A whole book might be written concerning the utiliza- 
tion of the waste of London. But I am not going to 



AND THE WAY OU f 155 

Write one. I hope before long to do something much 
better than write a book, namely, to establish an organ- 
ization to utilize the waste, and then if I describe what 
is being done it will be much better than by now ex- 
plaining what I propose to do. But there is one more 
waste material to which it is necessary to allude. I 
refer to old newspapers and magazines and books 
Newspapers accumulate in our houses until we some- 
times burn them in sheer disgust. Magazines and old 
books lumber our shelves until we hardly know where 
to turn to put a new volume. My Brigade will relieve 
the householder from these difiiculties, and thereby be- 
come a great distributing agency of cheap literature. 
After the magazine has done its duty in a middle-class 
household it can be passed on to the reading-rooms, 
workhouses, and hospitals. Every publication issued 
from the Press that is o! the slightest use to men and 
women will, by our Scheme, acquire a double share of 
usefulness. It will be read first by its owner, and then 
by many people who would never otherwise see it. 

We shall establish an immense second-hand book, 
shop. All the best books that come into our hands will 
be exposed for sale, not merely at our central depots, 
but on the barrows of our peripatetic colporteurs, who 
will go from street to street with literature which, I 
trust, will be somewhat superior to the ordinary pabu- 
lum supplied to the poor. After we have sold all we 
could, and given away all that is needed to public insti- 
tutions, the remainder will be carried down to our great 
Paper Mill, of which we shall speak later, in connection 
with our Farm Colony. 

The Household Salvage Brigade will constitute an 
agency capable of being utilized to any extent for the 
distribution of parcels, newspapers, etc. When once 
you have your reliable man who will call at every house 



156 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

with the regularity of a postman, and go his beat with 
the punctuality of a policeman, you can do great things 
with him. I do not need to elaborate this point. It 
will be a universal Corps of Commissionaires, created 
for the service of the public and in the interests of the 
poor, which will bring us into direct relations with every 
family in London, and will therefore constitute an un- 
equaled medium for the distribution of advertisements 
and the collection of information. 

It does not require a very fertile imagination to see 
that when such a house-to-house visitation is regularly 
established, it will develop in all directions; and work- 
ing, as it would, in connection with our Anti-sweating 
Shops and Industrial Colony, would probably soon be- 
come the medium for negotiating sundry household re- 
pairs, from a broken window to a damaged stocking. If 
a porter were wanted to move furniture, or a woman 
wanted to do charing, or someone to clean windows or 
any other odd job, the ubiquitous Servant of All who 
called for the waste, either verbally or by postcard, 
would receive the order, and whoever was wanted would 
appear at the time desired without any further trouble 
on the part of the householder. 

One word as to the cost. There are five hundred thou- 
sand houses in the Metropolitan Police district. To sup- 
ply every house with a tub and a sack for the reception of 
waste would involve an initial expenditure which could 
not possibly be less than one shilling a house. So huge 
is London, and so enormous the numbers with which we 
shall have to deal, that this simple preliminary would 
require a cost of ^25,000. Of course I do not propose 
to begin on anything like such a vast scale. That sum, 
which is only one of the many expenditures involved, 
will serve to illustrate the extent of the operations which 
the Household Salvage Brigade will necessitate. The 



AND THE WAY OUT 157 

enterprise is therefore beyond the reach of any but a 
great and powerful organization, commanding capital 
and able to secure loyalty, discipline, and willing service. 



CHAPTER III 

TO THE country! — THE FARM COLONY 

I leave on one side for a moment various features of 
jthe operations which will be indispensable but subsidiary 
ito the City Colony, such as the Rescue Homes for Lost 
Women, the Retreats for Inebriates, the Homes for Dis- 
;charged Prisoners, the Enquiry Office for the Discovery 
of Lost Friends and Relatives, and the Advice Bureau, 
which will, in time, become an institution that will be 
invaluable as a poor man's Tribune. All these and 
other suggestions for saving the lost and helping the 
poor, although they form essential elements of the City 
Colony, will be better dealt with after I have explained 
the relation which the Farm Colony will occupy to the 
City Colony, and set forth the way in which the former 
|will act as a feeder to the Colony Over Sea. 
I I have already described how I propose to deal, in 
jthe first case, with the mass of surplus labor which 
Iwill infallibly accumulate on our hands as soon as the 
(Shelters are more extensively established and in good 
[working order. But I fully recognize that when all has 
been done that can be done in the direction of disposing 
of the unhired men and women of the town, there will 
still remain many whom you can neither employ in the 
Household Salvage Brigade, nor for whom employers, be 
they registered never so carefully, can be found. What, 
then, must be done with them? The answer to that 
^ _158 



AND THE WAV OUT 159 

question seems to me obvious. They must go upon the 
land! 

The land is the source of all food; only by the applica- 
tion of labor can the land be made fully productive. 
There is any amount of waste land in the v^^orld, not far 
away in distant Continents, next door to the North Pole, 
but here at our very doors. Have you ever calculated, 
for instance, the square miles of unused land which 
fringe the sides of all our .railroads? No doubt some 
embankments are of material that would baffle the culti- 
vating skill of a Chinese or the careful husbandry of a 
Swiss mountaineer; but these are exceptions. When 
other people talk of reclaiming Salisbury Plain, or of 
cultivating the bare moorlands of the bleak North, I 
think of the hundreds of square miles of land that lie 
in long ribbons £)n the side of each of our railways, upon 
which, without any cost for cartage, innumerable tons of 
City manure could be shot down, and the c^ops of which 
could be carried at once to the nearest mxarket without 
any but the initial cost of heaping into convenient trucks. 
These railway embankments constitute a vast estate, 
capable of growing fruit enough to supply all the jam 
that Crosse and Blackwell ever boiled. In almost every 
county in England are vacant farms, and, in still greater 
numbers, farms but a quarter cultivated, which only 
need the application of an industrious population work- 
ing with due incentive to produce twice, thrice, and 
four times as much as they yield to-day. 

I am aware that there are few subjects upon which 
there are such fierce controversies as the possibilities of 
making a livelihood out of small holdings, but Irish 
cottiers do it, and in regions infinitely worse adapted 
for the purpose than our Essex corn lands, and possess- 
ing none of the advantages which civilization and cd- 
operation place at the command of an intelligently 



160 IN DARKEsr KNGLAND 

directed body of husbandmen. Talk about the land not 
being worth cultivating! Go to the Swiss Valleys and 
examine for yourself the miserable patches of land, hewed 
®ut as it were from the heart of the granite mountains, 
where the cottager grows his crops and makes a liveli- 
hood. No doubt he has his Alp, where his cows pasture 
in summer-time, and his other occupations which enable 
him to supplement the scanty yield of his farm garden 
among the crags; but if it pays the Swiss mountaineer 
in the midst of the eternal snows, far removed from any 
market, to cultivate such miserable soil in the brief 
summer of the high Alps, it is impossible to believe 
that Englishmen, working on English soil, close to our 
markets and enjoying all the advantages of co operation, 
cannot earn their daily bread by their daily toil. The 
soil of England is not unkindly, and although much is said 
against our climate, it is, as Mr. Russell Lowell observes, 
after a lengthened experience of many countries and 
many climes, "the best climate in the whole world for 
the laboring man." There are more days in the English 
year on which a man can work out of doors with a spade, 
with comparative comfort, than in any other country 
under heaven. I do not say that men will make a for- 
tune out of the land, nor do I pretend that we can, under 
the gray English skies, hope ever to vie with the pro- 
ductiveness of the Jersey farms; but I am prepared to 
maintain against all comers that it is possible for an 
industrious man to grow his rations, provided he is given 
a spade with which to dig and land to dig in. Espe- 
cially will this be the case with intelligent direction and 
the advantages of co-operation. 

Is it not a reasonable supposition? It always seems to 
me a strange thing that men should insist that you must 
first transport your laborer thousands of miles to a des- 
olate, bleak country in order to set him to work to ex- 



AND THE WAY OUT 161 

tract a livelihood from the soil, when hundreds of thou- 
sands of acres lie only half tilled at home, or not tilled 
at all. Is it reasonable to think that you can only be- 
gin to make a living out of land when it lies several 
thousand miles from the nearest market, and thousands 
of miles from the place where the laborer has to buy 
his tools and procure all the necessaries of life which 
are not grown on the spot? If a man can make squatting 
pay on the prairies or in Australia, where every quarter 
of grain which he produces has to be dragged by locomo- 
tives across the railways of the continent, and then car- 
ried by steamers across the wide ocean, can he not 
equally make the operation at least sufficiently profitable 
to keep himself alive if you plant him, with the same 
soil, within an hour by rail of the greatest markets in the 
world? 

The answer to this is, that you cannot give your man 
as much soil as he has on the prairies or in the Canadian 
lumber lands. This, no doubt, is true, but the squatter 
who settles in the Canadian backwoods does not clear 
his land all at once. He lives on a small portion of it, 
and goes on digging and delving little by little, until, 
after many years of Herculean labor, he hews out for 
himself, and his children after him, a freehold estate. 
Freehold estates, I admit, are not to be had for the 
picking up on English soil, but if a man will but work 
in England as they work in Canada or in Australia, he 
will find as little difficulty in making a livelihood here 
as there. 

I may be wrong, but when I travel abroad and see the 
desperate struggle on the part of peasant proprietors and 
the small holders in mountainous districts for an addi- 
tional patch of soil, the idea of cultivating which would 
make our agricultural laborers turn up their noses in 
speechless contempt, I cannot but think that our Eng- 
// 



162 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

lish soil could carry a far greater number of souls to the 
acre than that which it bears at present. Suppose, for 
instance, that Essex were suddenly to find itself unmoored 
from its English anchorage and towed across the Chan- 
nel to Ncrmandy, or, not to imagine miracles, suppose 
that an Armada of Chinese were to make a descent on 
the Isle of Thanet, as did the sea-kings, Hengist and 
Horsa, does anyone imagine for a moment that Kent, 
fertile and cultivated as it is, would not be regarded as 
a very Garden of Eden, out of the odd corners of which 
our yellow-skinned invaders would contrive to extract 
su^cient to keep themselves in sturdy health? T only 
suggest the possibility in order to bring out clearly the 
fact that the difficulty is not in the soil nor in the cli- 
mate, but in the lack of application of sufficient labor to 
sufficient land in the truly scientific way. 

"What is the scientific way?" I shall be asked impa- 
tiently. I am not an agriculturist; I do not dogmatize. 
I have read much from many pens, and have noted the 
experiences of many colonies, and I have learned the les- 
son that it is in the school of practical labor that the 
most valuable knowledge is to be obtained. Neverthe- 
less, the bulk of my proposals are based upon the experi- 
ence of many who have devoted their lives to the study 
of the subject, and have been endorsed by specialists 
whose experience gives them authority to speak with un- 
questioning confidence. 

Section I.— THE FARM PROPER 

My present idea is to take an estate from five hundred 
to a thousand acres within reasonable distance of Lon- 
don. It should be of such land as will be suitable for 
market gardening, while having some clay on it for 
brick-making and for crops requiring a heavier soil. If 
possible, it should not only be on a line of railway 



AND THE WAY OUT 1G3 

which is managed by intelligent and progressive direct- 
ors, but it should have access to the sea and to the 
river. It should be freehold land, and it should lie at 
some considerable distance from any town or village. 
The reason for the latter desideratum is obvious. We 
must be near London for the sake of our market and for 
the transmission of the commodities collected by our 
Household Salvage Brigade, but it must be some little 
distance from any town or village in order that the Col- 
ony may be planted clear out in the open away from the 
public house, that upas tree of civilization. A sine 
qua non of the new Farm Colony is that no intoxicating 
liquors will be permitted within its confines on any 
pretext whatever. The doctors will have to prescribe 
some other stimulant than alcohol for residents in this 
Colony. But it will be little use excluding alcohol 
with a strong hand and by cast-iron regulations if the 
Colonists have only to take a short walk in order to find 
themselves in the midst of the "Red Lions," and the 
"Blue Dragons," and the "George the Fourths," which 
abound in every country town. 

Having obtained the land I should proceed to prepare 
it for the Colonists. This is an operation which is es- 
sentially the same in any country. You need water sup- 
ply, provisions and shelter. All this would be done at 
first in the simplest possible style. Our pioneer bri- 
gade, carefully selected from the Out-of-Works in the 
City Colony, would be sent down to la}^ out the estate 
and prepare it for those who would come after. And 
here let me say that it is a great delusion to imagine 
that in the riffraff and waste of the labor market there 
are no workmen to be had except those that are worth- 
less. Worthless under the present conditions, exposed 
to constant temptations to intemperance no doubt they 
are, but some of the brightest men in London, with some 



1C4 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

of the smartest pairs of hands, and the cleverest brains, 
are at the present moment weltering helplessly in the 
sludge from which we propose to rescue them. 

I am not speaking without book in this matter. Some 
of my best Officers to-day have been even such as they. 
There is an infinite potentiality of capacity lying latent 
in our Provincial Tap-rooms and the City Gin Palaces 
if you can but get them soundly saved, and even short 
of that, if you can place them in conditions where they 
would no longer be liable to be sucked back into their 
old disastrous habits, you may do great things with 
them. 

I can well imagine the incredulous laughter which will 
greet my proposal. "What," it will be said, "do you 
think that you can create agricultural pioneers out of 
the scum of Cockneydom?" Let us look for a moment at 
the ingredients which make up what you call "the scum 
of Cockneydom." After careful examination and close 
cross-questioning of the Out-of-Works, whom we have 
already registered at our Labor Bureau, we find that at 
least sixty per cent, are country folk, men, women, boys, 
and girls, who have left their homes in the counties to 
come up to town in the hope of bettering themselves. 
They are in no sense of the word Cockneys, and they 
represent not the dregs of the country but rather its 
brighter and more adventurous spirits who have boldly 
tried to make their way in new and uncongenial 
spheres and have terribly come to grief. Of thirty cases, 
selected haphazard, in the various Shelters during the 
week ending July 5th, 1890, twenty-two were country- 
born, sixteen were men who had come up a long time 
ago, but did not ever seem to have settled to regular 
employ, and four were old military men. Of sixty cases 
examined into at the Bureau and Shelters during the 
fortnight ending August 2nd, forty-two were country peo- 



AND THE WAV OUT 135 

pie; twenty-six men who had been in London for various 
periods, ranging from six months to four years; nine 
were lads under eighteen, who had run away from home 
and come up to town; while four were ex-military. 
Of eighty-five cases of dossers who were spoken to at 
night when they slept in the streets, sixty-three were 
country people. A very small proportion of the genuine 
homeless Out-of-Works are Londoners bred and born. 

There is another element in the matter, the existence 
of which will be news to most people, and that is the 
large proportion of ex-military men who are among the 
helpless, hopeless destitute. Mr. Arnold White, after 
spending many months in the streets of London interro- 
gating more than four thousand men whom he found in 
the course of one bleak winter sleeping out of doors like 
animals returns it as his conviction that at least 20 per 
cent, are Army Reserve men. Twenty per cent! That 
is to say one man in every five with whom we shall have 
to deal has served Her Majesty the Queen under the 
colors. This is the resource to which these poor fel- 
lows come after they have given the prime of their lives 
to the service of their country. Although this may be 
largely brought about by their own thriftless and evil con- 
duct, it is a scandal and disgrace which may well make 
the cheek of the patriot tingle. Still, I see in it a great 
resource. A man who has been in the Queen's Army is 
a man who has learnt to obey. He is further a man 
who has been taught in the roughest of rough schools to 
be handy and smart, to make the best of the roughest 
fare, and not to consider himself a martyr if he is sent on 
a forlorn hope. I often say if we could only get Chris- 
tians to have one-half of the practical devotion and sense 
of duty that animates even the commonest Tommy 
Atkins, what a change would be brought about in the 
world! Look at poor Tommy! A country lad who 



106 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

gets himself into some scrape, runs away from home, 
finds himself sinking lower and lower, with no hope of 
employment, no friends to advise him, and no one to 
give him a helping hand. In sheer despair he takes the 
Queen's shilling and enters the ranks. He is handed 
over to an inexorable drill sergeant; he is compelled to 
room in barracks where privacy is unknown, to mix 
with men, many of them vicious, few of them companions 
whom he would of his own choice select. He gets his 
rations, and although he is told he will get a shilling a 
day, tliere are so many stoppages that he often does not 
finger a shilling a week. He is drilled and worked and 
ordered hither and thither as if he were a machine, all 
of which he takes cheerfully, without even considering 
that there is any hardship in his lot, plodding on in a 
dull, stolid kind of way for his Queen and his country, 
doing his best, also, poor chap, to be proud of his red 
uniform, and to cultivate his self-respect by reflecting 
that he is one of the defenders of his native land, one 
of the heroes upon whose courage and endurance depends 
the safety of the British realm. 

Some fine day, at the other end of the world, some 
prancing pro-consul finds it necessary to smash one of 
^he man-slaying machines that loom ominous on his 
borders, or some savage potentate makes an incursion 
into territory of a British colony, or some fierce outburst 
of Mohammedan fanaticism raises up a Mahdi in mid- 
Africa. In a moment Tommy Atkins is marched off to 
the troop ship, and swept across the seas, heart-sick 
and sea-sick, and miserable exceedingly, to fight the 
Queen's enemies in foreign parts. When he arrives there 
he is bundled ashore, brigaded with other troops, 
marched to the front through the blistering glare of a 
tropical sun, over poisonous marshes in which his com- 
rades sicken and die, until at last he is drawn up in 



AND THE WAY OUT IC 7 

square to receive the charge of tens of thousands of fero- 
cious savages. Far away from all who love him or care 
for him, foot-sore and travel weary, having eaten per- 
haps but a piece of dry bread in the last twenty-four 
hours, he must stand up and kill or be killed. Often 
he falls beneath the thrust of an assegai or the slashing 
broad-sword of the charging enemy. Then, after the 
fight is over, his comrades turn up the sod where he lies, 
bundle his poor bones into the shallow pit, and leave 
him without even across to mark his solitary grave. Per- 
haps he is fortunate and escapes. Yet Tommy goes un- 
complainingly through all these hardships and privations, 
does not think himself a martyr, takes no fine airs about 
what he has done and suffered, and shrinks uncomplain- 
ingly into our Shelters and our Factories, only asking as 
a benediction from Heaven that someone will give him 
an honest job of work to do. That is the fate of Tommy 
Atkins. If in our churches and chapels as much as one 
single individual were to bear and dare, for the benefit of 
his kind and the salvation of men, what a hundred 
thousand Tommy Atkinses bear uncomplainingly, taking 
it all as if it were in the day's work, for their rations 
and their shilling a da^ (with stoppages), think you we 
should not transform the whole face of the world? Yea, 
verily. We find but very little of such devotion; no, 
not in Israel. 

I look forward to making great use of these Army Re- 
serve men. There are engineers amongst them ; there 
are artillerymen and infantry; there are cavalrymen, who 
know what a horse needs to keep him in good health, 
and men of the transport department, for whom I shall 
find work enough to do in the transference of the multi- 
tudinous waste of London from our own Depots to the 
outlying Farm. This, however, is a digression, by the 
way. 



16S IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

After having got the Farm into some kind of ship- 
shape, we should select from the City Colonies all 
those who were likely to be successful as our first set- 
tlers. These would consist of men who had been work- 
ing so many weeks or days in the Labor Factory, or had 
been under observation for a reasonable time at the 
Shelters or in the Slums, and who had given evidence of 
their willingness to work, their amenity to discipline, 
and their ambition to improve themselves. On arrival 
at the Farm they would be installed in a barracks, and 
at once told off to work. In winter time there would be 
draining, and road-making, and fencing, and many other 
forms of industry which could go on when the days are 
short and the nights are long. In Spring, Summertime 
and Autumn, some would be employed on the land, 
chiefly in spade husbandry, upon what is called the sys- 
tem of "intensive" agriculture, such as prevails in the 
suburbs of Paris, where the market gardeners literally 
create the soil, and which yields much greater results 
than when you merely scratch the surface with a plough. 

Our Farm, I hope, would be as productive as a great 
market garden. There would be a Superintendent on the 
Colony, who would be a practical gardener, familiar 
with the best methods of small agriculture, and every- 
thing that science and experience shows to be needful 
for the profitable treatment of the land. Then there 
would be various other forms of industry continually in 
progress, so that employment could be furnished, adapted 
to the capacity and skill of every Colonist. Where 
farm buildings are wanted, the Colonists must erect them 
themselves. If they want glass houses, they must put 
them up. Everything on the Estate must be the produc- 
tion of the Colonists. Take, for instance, the building of 
cottages. After the first detachment has settled down 
into its quarters and brought the fields somewhat into 



AND THE WAY OUT 169 

cultivation, there will arise a demand for houses. These 
houses must be built, and the bricks made by the Colo- 
nists themselves. All the carpentering and the joinery 
will be done on the premises, and by this means a sus- 
tained demand for work will be created. Then there 
would be furniture, clothing, and a great many other 
wants, the supply of the whole of which would create la- 
bor which the Colonists must perform. 

For a long time to come the Salvation Army will be 
able to consume all the vegetables and crops which the 
Colonies will produce. That is one advantage of being 
connected with so great and growing a concern; the right 
hand will help the left, and we shall be able to do many 
things which those who devote themselves exclusively to 
colonization would find it impossible to accomplish. We 
have seen the large quantities of provisions which are re- 
quired to supply the Food Depots in their present dimen- 
sions, and with the coming extensions the consumption 
will be enormously augmented. 

On this Farm I propose to carry on every description of 
"little agriculture." 

I have not yet referred to the female side of our 
operations, but have reserved them for another chapter. 
It is necessary, however, to bring them in here in order 
to explain that employment will be created for women 
as well as men. Fruit farming affords a great opening 
for female labor, and it will indeed be a change as from 
Tophet to the Garden of Eden when the poor lost girls 
on the streets of London exchange the pavements of Pic- 
cadilly for the strawberry beds of Essex or Kent. 

Not only will vegetables and fruit of every description 
be raised, but I think that a great deal might be done 
in the smaller adjuncts of the Farm. 

It is quite certain that amongst the mass of people with 
whom we have to deal there will be a residual remnant 



170 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

of persons to some extent mentally infirm or physically 
incapacitated from engaging in the harder toils. For these 
people it is necessary to find work, and I think there 
would be a good field for their benumbed energies in look- 
ing after rabbits, feeding poultry, minding bees, and, in 
short, doing all those little odd jobs about a place which 
must be attended to, but which will not repay the labor 
of able-bodied men. 

One advantage of the cosmopolitan nature of the Army 
is that we have Officers in almost every country in the 
world. When this Scheme is well on the way every Sal- 
vation Officer in every land will have it imposed upon 
him as one of the duties of his calling, to keep his eyes 
open for every useful notion and every conceivable con- 
trivance for increasing the yield of the soil and utilizing 
the employment of waste labor. By this means I hope 
that there will not be an idea in the world which will 
not be made available for our Scheme. If an Officer in 
Sweden can give us practical hints as to how they man- 
age food kitchens for the people, or an Officer in the South 
of France can explain how the peasants are able to rear 
eggs and poultry not only for their own use, but so as to 
be able to export them by the million to England; if a 
Sergeant in Belgium understands how it is that the rab^ 
bit farmers there can feed and fatten and supply our 
market with millions of rabbits we shall have him over, 
tap his brains, and set him to work to benefit our people. 

By the establishment of this Farm Colony we should 
create a great school of technical agricultural education. 
It would be a Working Men's Agricultural University, 
training people for the life which they would have to lead 
in the new countries they will go forth to colonize and 
possess. 

Every man who goes to our Farm Colony does so, not 
to acquire his fortune, but to obtain a knowledge of an 



AND THE WAY OUT 171 

occupation and that mastery of his tools which will en- 
able him to play his part in the battle of life. He will 
be provided with a cheap uniform, which we shall find 
no difficulty in rigging up from the old clothes of Lon- 
don, and it will go hardly with us, and we shall have 
worse luck than the ordinary market gardener, if we do 
not succeed in making sufficient profit to pay all the ex- 
penses of the concern, and leave something over for the 
maintenance of the hopeiussly incompetent, and those 
who, to put it roughl}^, are not worth their keep. 

Every person in the Farm Colony will be taught the 
elementary lesson of obedience, and will be instructed 
in the needful arts of husbandry, or some other method 
of earning his bread. The Agricultural Section will 
learn the lesson of the seasons and of the best kind of 
seeds and plants. Those belonging to this Section will 
learn how to hedge and ditch, how to make roads and 
build bridges, and generally to subdue the earth and 
make it yield to him the riches which it never withholds 
from the industrious and skillful workman. But the 
Farm Colony, any more than the City Colony, although an 
abiding institution, will not provide permanently forthose 
with whom we have to deal. It is a Training School for 
Emigrants, a place where those indispensably practical 
lessons are given which will enable the Colonists to 
know their way about and to feel themselves at home 
wherever there is land to till, stock to rear, and harvests 
to reap. We shall rely greatly for the peace and pros- 
perity of the Colony upon the sense of brotherhood which 
will be universal in it from the highest to the lowest. 
While there will be no systematic wage-paying there 
will be some sort of rewards and remuneration for honest 
industry, which will be stored up, for his benefit, as 
afterwards explained. They will in the main work each 
for all, and, therefore, the needs of all will be supplied, 



172 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

and any overplus will go to make the bridge over which 
any poor fellow may escape from the horrible pit and 
the miry clay from which they themselves have been res- 
cued. 

The dullness and deadness of country life, especially 
in the Colonies, leads many men to prefer a life of hard- 
ship and privation in a City slum. But in our Colony 
they would be near to each other, and would enjoy the 
advantages of country life and the association and com- 
panionship of life in town. 

Section II.— THE INDUSTRIAL VILLAGE 

In describing the operations of the Household Salvage 
Brigade I have referred to the enormous quantities of 
good, sound food which would be collected from door to 
door every day of the year. Much of this food would be 
suitable for human consumption, its waste being next 
door to sinful. Imagine, for instance, the quantities of 
soup which might be made from boiling the good, fresh, 
meaty bones of the great City! Think of the dainty dishes 
which a French cook would be able to serve up from 
the scraps and odds and ends of a single West End 
kitchen! Good cookery is not an extravagance, but an 
economy, and many a tasty dish is made by our 
Continental friends out of materials which would be dis- 
carded indignantly by the poorest tramp in Whitechapel. 

But after all that is done there will remain a mass of food 
which cannot be eaten by man, but can be converted into 
food for him by the simple process of passing it through 
another digestive apparatus. The old bread of London, 
the soiled, stale crusts, can be used in foddering the 
horses which are employed in collecting the waste. It 
will help to feed the rabbits, whose hutches will be 
close by^ every cottage on the estate, and the hens of the 



AND THE WAY QUT 173 

Colony will flourish on the crumbs which tall from the 
table of Dives. But after the horses and the rabbits and 
poultry have been served, there will remain a residuum 
of eatable matter, which can only be profitably disposed 
of to the voracious and necessary pig. I foresee the rise 
of a piggery in connection with the new Social Scheme, 
which will dwarf into insignificance all that exist in 
Great Britain and Ireland. We have the advantage of 
the experience of the whole world as to the choice of 
breeds, the construction of sties, and the rearing of stock. 
We shall have the major part of our food practically for 
the cost of collection, and be able to adopt all the latest 
methods of Chicago for the killing, curing, and disposing 
of our pork, ham, and bacon. There are few animals more 
useful than the pig. He will eat anything, live any- 
where, and almost every particle of him, from the tip of 
his nose to the end of his tail, is capable of being con- 
verted into a salable commodity. Your pig also is a great 
producer of manure, and agriculture is, after all, largely 
a matter of manure. Treat the land well, and it will 
treat you well. With our piggery in connection with 
our Farm Colony, there would be no lack of manure. 

With the piggery there would grow up a great bacon 
factory for curing, and that again would make more work. 
Then as for sausages, they would be produced literally 
by the mile, and all made of the best meat, instead 
of being manufactured out of the very objectionable in- 
gredients too often stowed away in that poor man's 
favorite ration. 

Food, however, is only one of the materials which will 
be collected by the Household Salvage Brigade. The 
barges which float down the river with the tide, laden 
to the brim with the cast-off waste of half a million 
homes, will bring down an enormous quantity of mate- 
rial which cannot be eaten even by pigs. There will be, 



174 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

for instance, the old bones. At present it pays specu- 
lators to go to the prairies of America and gather up 
the bleached bones of the dead buffaloes, in order to 
make manure. It pays manufacturers to bring bones 
from the end of the earth in order to grind them up for 
use on our fields. But the waste bones of London ; who 
collects them? I see, as in a vision, barge loads upon 
barge loads of bones floating down the Thames to the 
great Bone Factory. Some of the best will yield mate- 
rial for knife -handles and buttons, and the numberless 
articles which will afford ample opportunity in the long 
winter evenings for the acquisition of skill on the part 
of our Colonist carvers, while the rest will go straight 
to the Manure Mill. There will be a constant demand 
for manure on the part of our ever-increasing nests of 
new Colonies and our Co-operative Farm, every man of 
which will be educated in the great doctrine that there 
is no good agriculture without liberal manuring. And 
here will be an unfailing source of supply. 

Among the material which comes down will be an 
immense quantity of greasy matter, bits of fat, suet and 
lard, tallow, strong butter, and all the rancid fat of a 
great city. For all that we shall have to find use. The 
best of it will make wagon grease; the rest, after due 
boiling and straining, will form the nucleus of the raw 
material which will make our Social Soap a household 
word throughout the kingdom. After the Manure Works, 
the Soap Factory will be the natural adjunct of our 
operations. 

The fourth great output of the daily waste of London 
will be waste paper and rags, which, after being chem- 
ically treated, and duly manipulated by machinery, will 
be re-issued to the world in the shape of paper. The 
Salvation Army consumes no less than thirty tons of 
paper every week. Here, therefore, would be one cus- 



AND THE WAY OUT 175 

tomer for as much paper as the new mill would be able 
to turn out at the onset; paper on which we could print 
the glad tidings of great joy, and tell the poor of all 
nations the news of salvation for earth and Heaven, 
full, present, and free to all the children of men. 

Then comes the tin. It will go hard with us if we 
cannot find some way of utilizing these tins, whether 
we make them into flower-pots with a coat of enamel, or 
convert them into ornaments, or cut them up for toys or 
some other purpose. My officers have been instructed to 
make an exhaustive report on the way the refuse collect- 
ors of Paris deal with the sardine tins. The industry of 
making tin toys will be one which can be practiced better 
in the Farm Colony than in the City. If necessary, we 
shall bring an accomplished workman from France, who 
will teach our people the way of dealing with the tin. 

In connection with all this, it is obvious there would 
be a constant demand for packing-cases, for twine, rope, 
and for boxes of all kinds; for carts and cars; and, in 
short, we should before long have a complete community 
practicing almost all the trades that are to be found in 
London, except the keeping of grog shops, the whole 
being worked upon co-operative principles, but co-opera- 
tion not for the benefit of the individual co-operator, but 
for the benefit of the sunken mass that lies behind it. 

RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF COLONISTS 

A document containing the Orders and Regulations 
for the Government of a Colony must be approved and 
signed by every Colonist before admission. Amongst 
other things there will be the following: 

1. All Officers must be treated respectfully and im- 
plicitly obeyed. 

2. The use of intoxicants strictly prohibited, none 
being allowed within its borders. Any Colonist guilty 



176 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

of violating this order to be expelled, and that on the 
first offense. 

3. Expulsion for drunkenness, dishonesty, or falsehood 
will follow the third offense. 

4. Profane language strictly forbidden. 

5. No cruelty to be practiced on man, woman, child, 
or animal. 

6. Serious offenders against the virtue of women or of 
children, of either sex, to incur immediate expulsion. 

7. After a certain period of probation, and a considera- 
ble amount of patience, all who will not work to be ex- 
pelled. 

8. The decision of the Governor of the Colony, 
whether in the City, or tlie Farm, or Over the Sea, to 
be binding in all cases. 

9. With respect to penalties, the following rules will 
be acted upon: The chief reliance for the maintenance 
of order, as has been observed before, will be placed 
upon the spirit of love which will prevail throughout 
the community. But as it cannot be expected to be 
universally successful, certain penalties will have to be 
provided: 

(a) First offenses, except in flagrant cases, will be 

recorded. 
(d) The second offense will be published. 
(<r) The third offense will incur expulsion or being 
handed over to the authorities. 
Other regulations will be necessary as the Scheme 
develops. 

There will be no attempt to enforce upon the Colo- 
nists the rules and regulations to which Salvation Sol- 
diers are subjected. Those who are soundly saved and 
who of their own free will desire to become Salvationists 
will, of course, be subjected to the rules of the Service. 
But Colonists who are willing to work and obey the 
orders of the Commanding Officer will only be subject 
to the foregoing and similar regulations; in all other 
things they will be left free. 

For instance, there will be no objection to field recre- 



AND THE WAY OUT 177 

ations or any outdoor exercises which conduce to the 
maintenance of health and spirits. A reading-room and 
a library will be provided, together with a hall, in 
which they can amuse themselves in the long winter 
nights and in unfavorable weather; but gambling and 
anything of an immoral tendency will be repressed like 
stealing. These things are not for the Salvation Army 
Soldiers, who have other work in the world, but for those 
who are not in the Army these recreations will be per- 
missible. 

There will probably be an Annual Exhibition of fruit 
and flowers, at which all the Colonists who have a plot of 
garden of their own will take part. They will exhibit 
their fruit and vegetables as well as their rabbits, their 
poultry, and all the other live stock of the farm. 

Every effort will be made to establish village indus- 
tries, and I am not without hope but that we may be able 
to restore some of the domestic occupations which steam 
has compelled us to confine to the great factories. The 
more the Colony can be made self-supporting the 
better. And although the hand loom can never com- 
pete with Manchester mills, still an occupation which 
kept the hands of the good wife busy in the long winter 
nights, is not to be despised as an element in the econom- 
ics of the Settlement. While Manchester and Leeds 
.nay be able to manufacture common goods much more 
cheaply than they can be spun at home, even these 
emporiums, with all their grand improvements in ma- 
chinery, would be sorely pressed to-day to compete with 
the hand loom in many superior classes of work. For 
instance, we all know the hand-sewn boot still holds its 
own against the most perfect article that machinery can 
turn out. 

There would be, in the centre of the Colony, a Public 
Elementary School, at which the children would receive 
12 



178 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

training, and side by side with that an Agricultural In- 
dustrial School, as elsewhere described. The religious 
w^elfare of the Colony would be looked after by the Salva- 
tion Army, but there will be no compulsion to take part 
in its services. The Sabbath will be strictly observed; 
DO unnecessary work will be done in the Colony on that 
day, but beyond interdicted labor, the Colonists will be 
allowed to spend Sunday as they please. It will be the 
fault of the Salvation Army if they do not find our Sun- 
day Services sufficiently attractive to command their 
attendance. 

Section III.— AGRICULTURAL VILLAGES 

This brings me to the next feature of the Scheme, 
the creation of agricultural settlements in the neighbor- 
hood of the Farm, around the original Estate. I hope to 
obtain land forthepurposeof allotments, w^hich can be taken 
up to the extent of so many acres by the more competent 
Colonists who wish to remain at home instead of going 
abroad. There will be allotments from three to five 
acres, with a cottage, a cow, and the necessary tools and 
seed for making the allotment self-supporting. A weekly 
charge will be imposed for the repayment of the cost 
of the fixing and stock. The tenant will, of course, be 
entitled to his tenant-right, but adequate precautions 
will be taken against underletting and other forms by 
which sweating makes its way into agricultural com- 
munities. On entering into possession, the tenant will 
become responsible for his own and his family's main- 
tenance. I shall stand no longer in the relation of father 
of the household to him, as I do to the other members 
of the Colony; his obligations will cease to me, except 
in the payment of his rent. 

The creation of a large number of Allotment Farms 
would make the establishment of a creamery necessary. 



AND THE WAY OUT 179 

where the milk could be brought in every day and con- 
verted into butter by the most modern methods with the 
least possible delay. Dairying, which has in some places 
on the continent almost developed to a fine art, is in a 
very backward condition in this country. But by co-opera- 
tion among the cottiers and an intelligent Headquarter 
staff, much could be done which at present appears im- 
possible. 

The tenant will be allowed permanent tenancy on pay- 
ment of an annual rent or land tax, subject, of course, 
to such necessary regulations which may be made for 
the prevention of intemperance and immorality and the 
preservation of the fundamental features of the Colon}^ 
In this way our Farm Colony will throw off small Colo- 
nies all round it until the original site is but the centre 
of a whole series of small farms, where those whom 
we have rescued and trained will live, if not under their 
own vine and fig tree, at least in the midst of their own 
little fruit farm, and surrounded by their small flocks 
and herds. The cottages will be so many detached resi- 
dences, each standing in its own ground, not so far away 
from its neighbors as to deprive its occupants of the 
benefit of human intercourse. 

Section IV.— CO-OPERATIVE FARM 

Side by side with the Farm Colony proper I should 
propose to renew the experiment of Mr. E. T. Craig, 
which he found to work so successfully at Ralahine. When 
any members of the original Colony had pulled them- 
selves sufficiently together to desire to begin again on 
their own account, I should group some of them as part- 
ners in a Co-operative Farm, and see whether or no the 
success achieved in County Clare could not be repeated 
in Essex or in Kent. I cannot have more unpromising 
material to deal with than the wild Irishmen on Colonel 



180 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Vandeleur's estate, and I would certainly take care to 
be safeguarded against any such mishap as destroyed 
the early promise of Ralahine. 

I shall look upon this as one of the most important 
experiments of the entire series, and if, as I anticipate, 
it can be worked successfully — that is, if the results of 
Ralahine can be secured on a larger scale — I shall con- 
sider that the problem of the employment of the people, 
and the use of the land, and the food supply for the 
globe, is unquestionably solved, were its inhabitants 
many times greater in number than they are. 

Without saying more, some idea will be obtained as 
to what I propose from the story of Ralahine, related 
briefly at the close of this volume. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE OVER-SEA COLONY 

We now come to the third and final stage of the re- 
generative process — The Colony Over-Sea. To mention 
Over-Sea is sufficient with some people to damn the 
Scheme. A prejudice against emigration has been dili 
gently fostered in certain quarters by those who have 
openly admitted that they did not wish to deplete the 
rank of the Army of Discontent at home, for the more 
discontented people you have here the more trouble you 
can give the Government, and the more power you have 
to bring about the general overturn, which is the only 
thing in which they see any hope for the future. Some 
again object to emigration on the ground that it is 
transportation. I confess that I have great sym- 
pathy with those who object to emigration as carried 
on hitherto, and if it be a consolation to any of my 
critics, I may say at once that so far from compulso- 
rily expatriating any Englishman, I shall refuse to have 
any part or lot in emigrating any man or woman who 
does not voluntarily wish to be sent out. 

A journey over sea is a very different thing now to what 
it was when a voyage to Australia consumed more than 
six months, when emigrants were crowded by hundreds 
into sailing ships, and scenes of abominable sin and 
brutality were the normal incidents of the passage. The 
World has grown much smaller since the electric tele- 
graph was discovered, and side by side with the shrinkage 

181 



182 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

of this planet under the influence of steam and electricity 
there has come a sense of brotherhood and a conscious- 
ness of community of interest and of nationality on the 
part of the English-speaking people throughout the 
world. To change from Devon to Austrafia is not such 
a change in many respects as merely to cross over from 
Devon to Normandy. In Australia the Emigrant finds 
himself among men and women of the same habits, the 
same language, and in fact the same people, excepting 
that they live under the southern cross instead of in the 
northern latitudes. The reduction of the postage be- 
tween England and the Colonies, a reduction which I 
hope will soon be followed by the establishment of the 
Universal Penny Post between the English-speaking 
lands, will tend to lessen the sense of distance. 

The constant traveling of the Colonists backward and 
forward to England makes it absurd to speak of the Col- 
onies as if they were a foreign land. They are simply 
pieces of Britain distributed about the world, enabling 
the Britisher to have access to the richest parts of the 
earth. 

Another objection which will be taken to this 
Scheme is that Colonists already over sea will see with 
infinite alarm the prospect of the transfer of our waste 
labor to their country. It is easy to understand how 
this misconception will arise, but there is not much 
danger of opposition on this score. The working-men 
who rule the roost at Melbourne object to the introduc- 
tion of fresh workmen into their labor-market, for the 
same reason that the new Dockers' Union objects to the 
appearance of new hands at the dock gates — that is, for 
fear the new-comers will enter into unfriendly compe- 
tition with them. But no Colony, not even the Protec- 
tionist and Trade Unionists who govern Victoria, could 
rationally object to the introduction of trained Colonists 



AND THE WAY OUT 183 

planted out upon the land. They would see that these 
men would become a source of wealth, simply because 
they would at once become producers as well as comsum- 
ers, and instead of cutting down wages they would tend 
directly to improve trade, and so increase the employ- 
ment of the workmen now in the Colony. Emigration 
as hitherto conducted has been carried out on directly 
opposite principles to these. Men and v/omen have sim- 
ply been shot down into countries without any regard to 
their possession of ability to earn a livelihood, and have 
consequently become an incubus upon the energies of 
the communit}^ and a discredit, expense, and burden. 
The result is that they gravitate to the towns and com- 
pete with colonial workmen, and thereby drive down 
wages. We shall avoid that mistake. We need not 
wonder that Australians and other Colonists should object 
to their countries being converted into a sort of dump- 
ing-ground on which to deposit men and women totally 
unsuited for the new circumstatices in which they find 
themselves. 

Moreover, looking at it from the aspect of the class 
itself, would such emigration be of any enduring value? 
It is not merely more favorable circumstances that are 
required by these crowds, but those habits of industry, 
truthfulness, and self-restraint, which will enable them 
to profit by better conditions if they could only come to 
possess them. According to the most reliable informa- 
tion, there are already sadly too many of the same 
classes we want to help in countries supposed to be the 
paradise of the working-man. 

What could be done with a people whose first inquiry 
on reaching a foreign land would be for a whisky shop, 
and who were utterly ignorant of those forms of labor 
and habits of industry absolutely indispensable to the 
earning of a subsistence amid the hardships of an Emi- 



184 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

grant's life? Such would naturally shrink from the self- 
denial, the new circumstances inevitably called for, and 
rather than suffer the inconveniences connected with a 
settler's life, would probably sink down into helpless 
despair, or settle in the slums of the first city they came 
to. 

These difficulties, in my estimation, bar the way to 
the emigration on any considerable scale of the "sub- 
merged tenth," and yet I am strongly of opinion, with 
the majority of those who have thought and written on 
political economy, that emigration is the only remedy 
for this mighty evil. Now, the Over-Sea Colony plan, 
I think, meets these difficulties: 

(i) In the preparation of the Colony for the people. 

(2) In the preparation of the people for the Colony. 

(3) In the arrangements that are rendered possible for 
the transport of the people when prepared. 

It is proposed to secure a large tract of land in some 
country suitable to our purpose. We have thought of 
South Africa, to begin with. We are in no way pledged 
to this part of the world, or to it alone. There is noth- 
ing to prevent our establishing similar settlements in 
Canada, Australia, or some other land. British Colum- 
bia has been strongly urged upon our notice. Indeed, 
it is certain if this Scheme proves the success we an- 
ticipate, the first Colony will be the forerunner of sim- 
ilar communities elsewhere. Africa, however, presents 
to us great advantages for the moment. There is any 
amount of land suitable for our purpose which can be 
obtained, we think, without difficulty. The climate is 
healthy. Labor is in great demand, so that if by any 
means work failed on the Colony, there would be abundant 
opportunities for securing good wages from the neighbor- 
ing Companies. 



AND THE WAY OUT 185 

Section L— THE COLONY AND THE COLONISTS 

Before any decision is arrived at, however, informa- 
tion will be obtained as to the position and character of 
the land; the accessibility of markets for commodi- 
ties; communication with Europe, and other necessary 
particulars. 

The next business would be to obtain on grant, or 
otherwise, a sufficient tract of suitable country for the 
purpose of a Colony, on conditions that would meet its 
present and future character. 

After obtaining a title to the country, the next busi- 
ness will be to effect a settlement in it. This, I suppose, 
will be accomplished by sending a competent body of 
men under skilled supervision to fix on a suitable location 
for the first settlement, erecting such buildings as would 
be required, inclosing and breaking up the land, putting 
in first crops, and so storing sufficient supplies of food 
for the future. 

Then a supply of Colonists would be sent out to join 
them, and from time to time other detachments, as the 
Colony was prepared to receive them. Further locations 
could then be chosen, and more country broken up, and 
before a very long period has passed the Colony would 
be capable of receiving and absorbing a continuous stream 
of emigration of considerable proportions. 

The next work would be the establishment of a strong 
and efficient government, prepared to carry out and enforce 
the same laws and discipline to which the Colonists had 
been accustomed in England, together with such altera- 
tions and additions as the new circumstances would ren- 
der necessary. 

The Colonists would become responsible for all that 
concerned their own support; that is to say, they would 
buy and sell, engage in trade, hire servants, and trans- 



186 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

act all the ordinary business affairs of every-day life. 
Our Headquarters in England would represent the Col- 
ony in this country on their behalf, and with money sup- 
plied by them, when once fairly established, would buy for 
their agents what they were at the outset unable to pro- 
duce themselves, such as machinery and the like, also 
selling their produce to the best advantage. 

All land, timber, minerals, and the like, would be 
rented to the Colonists; all unearned increments, and 
improvements on the land, would be held on behalf of 
the entire community, and utilized for its general ad- 
vantages, a certain percentage being set apart for the 
extension of its borders, and the continued transmission 
of Colonists from England in increasing numbers. 

Arrangements would be made for the temporary accom- 
modation of new arrivals, Officers being maintained for the 
purpose of taking them in hand on landing and directing 
and controlling them generally. So far as possible, they 
would be introduced to work without any waste of time, 
situations being ready for them to enter upon; and any 
way, their wants would be supplied till this was the case. 

There would be friends who would welcome and care 
for them, not merely on the principle of profit and loss, 
but on the ground of friendship and religion, many of 
whom the emigrants would probably have known before 
in the old country, together with all the social influ- 
ences, restraints, and religious enjoyments to which the 
Colonists have been accustomed. 

After dealing with the preparation of the Colony for 
the Colonist, we now come to the preparation of the 

COLONISTS FOR THE OVER-SEA COLONY 

They would be prepared by an education in honesty, 
truth, and industry, without which we could not indulge 
in any hope of their succeeding. While men and women 



And the way out 187 

would be received into the City Colony without character, 
none would be sent over the sea who had not been proved 
Worthy of this trust. 

They would be inspired with an ambition to do well 
for themselves and their fellow Colonists. 

They would be instructed in all that concerned their 
future career. 

They would be taught those industries in which they 
would be most profitably employed. 

They would be inured to the hardships they would 
have to endure. 

They would be accustomed to the economies they 
would have to practice. 

They would be made acquainted with the comrades 
with whom they would have to live and labor. 

They would be accustomed to the Government, Orders, 
and Regulations which they would have to obey. 

They would be educated, so far as the opportunity 
served, in those habits of patience, forbearance, and af- 
fection which would so largely tend to their own wel- 
fare, and to the successful carrying out of this part of 
our Scheme. 

TRANSPORT TO THE OVER-SEA COLONY 

We now come to the question of transport. This 
certainly has an element of difficulty in it, if the remedy 
is to be applied on a very large scale. But this will 
appear of less importance if we consider: 

That the largeness of the number will reduce the indi- 
vidual cost. Emigrants can be conveyed to such a loca- 
tion in South Africa as we have in view, by ones and 
twos, at ^8 per head, including land journey; and, no 
doubt, were a large number carried, this figure would be 
reduced considerably. 

Many of the Colonists would have friends who would 



188 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

assist them with the cost of passage monefy and outfit. 
All the unmarried will have earned something on the 
City and Farm Colonies, which will go towards meeting 
their passage money. In the course of time relatives, 
who are comfortably settled in the Colony, will save 
money, and assist their kindred in getting out to them. 
We have the examples before our eyes in Australia and 
the United States of how those countries have in this 
form absorbed from Europe millions of poor struggling 
people. 

All Colonists and emigrants generally will bind them- 
selves in a legal instrument to repay all monies, ex- 
penses of passage, outfit, or otherwise, which would in 
turn be utilized in sending out further contingents. 

On the plan named, if prudently carried out and gen- 
erously assisted, the transfer of the entire surplus popu- 
lation of this country is not only possible, but would, 
we think, in process of time, be effected with enormous 
advantage to the people themselves, to this country, and 
the country of their adoption. The history of Aus- 
tralia and the United States evidences this. It is quite 
true the first settlers in the latter were people superior 
in every way for such an enterprise to the bulk of those 
we propose to send out. But it is equally true that 
large numbers of the most ignorant and vicious of our 
European populations have been pouring into that coun- 
try ever since without affecting its prosperity, and this 
Over-Sea Colony would have the immense advantage at 
the outset which would come from a government and 
discipline carefully adapted to its peculiar circum- 
stances, and rigidly enforced in every particular. 

I would guard against misconception in relation to 
this Over-Sea Colony by pointing out that all my pro- 
posals here are necessarily tentative and experimental. 
There is no intention on my part to stick to any of these 



AND THE WAY OUT 189 

suggestions if, on maturer consideration and consulta- 
tion with practical men, they can be improved upon. 
Mr. Arnold White, who has already conducted two 
parties of Colonists to South Africa, is one of the few 
men in this country who has had practical experience of 
the actual difficulties of colonization. I have, through 
a mutual friend, had the advantage of comparing notes 
with him very fully, and I venture to believe that there 
is nothing in this Scheme that is not in harmony with 
the result of his experience. In a couple of months this 
book will be read all over the world. It will bring me 
a plentiful crop of suggestions, and, I hope, offers of 
service from many valuable and experienced Colonists 
in every country. In the due order of things the Over- 
Sea Colony is the last to be started. Long before our 
first batch of Colonists is ready to cross the ocean I 
shall be in a position to correct and revise the propos- 
als of this chapter by the best wisdom and matured 
experience of the practical men of every Colony in 
the Empire. 

Section II.— UNIVERSAL EMIGRATION 

We have in our remarks on the Over-Sea Colony re- 
ferred to the genera] concensus of opinion on the part of 
those who have studied the Social Question as to Emi- 
gration being the only remedy for the overcrowded pop- 
ulation of this country, at the same time showing some 
of the difficulties which lie in the way of the adoption 
of the remedy; the dislike of the people to so great 
a change as is involved in going from one country to an- 
other; the cost of their transfer, and their general un- 
fitness for an emigrant's life. These difficulties, as I 
think we have seen, are fully met by the Over-Sea Col- 
ony Scheme. But, apart from those who, driven by their 



190 IN DARKEST ENGLANt) 

abject poverty, will avail themselves of our Scheme, there 
are multitudes of people all over the country who would 
be likely to emigrate could they be assisted in so doing. 
Those we propose to help in the following manner: 

1. By opening a Bureau in London, and appointing 
Officers whose business it will be to acquire every kind 
of information as to suitable countries, their adaptation 
to, and the openings they present for, different trades and 
callings, the possibility of obtaining land and employ- 
ment, the rates of remuneration, and the like. These 
inquiries will include the cost of passage-money, rail- 
way fares, outfit, together with every kind of informa- 
tion required by an emigrant. 

2. From this Bureau any one may obtain all necessary 
information. 

3. Special terms will be arranged with steamships, 
railway companies, and land agents, of which emigrants 
using the Bureau will have the advantage. 

4. Introductions will be supplied, as far as possible, 
to agents and friends in the localities to which the em- 
igrant may be proceeding. 

5. Intending emigrants, desirous of saving money, can 
deposit it through this Bureau in the Arm}^ Bank for 
that purpose. 

6. It is expected that government contractors and 
other employers of labor requiring Colonists of relia- 
ble character will apply to this Bureau for such, offer- 
ing favorable terms with respect to passage-money, em- 
ployment, and other advantages. 

7. No emigrant will be sent out in response to any 
application from abroad, where the emigrant's expenses 
are defrayed, without references as to character, indus- 
try, and fitness. 

This Bureau, we think, will be especially useful to 
women and young girls. There must be a large number 
of such in this country living in semi-starvation, any 
way with very poor prospects, who would be very wel- 
come abroad, the expense of whose transfer governments 
and masters and mistresses alike would be very glad to 



AND THE WAY OUT 191 

defray, or assist in defraying, if they could only be as- 
sured on both sides of the beneficial character of the ar- 
rangements when made. 

So widespread now are the operations of the Army, 
and so extensively will this Bureau multiply its agen- 
cies, that it will speedily be able to make personal in- 
quiries on both sides, that are in the interest alike of the 
emigrant and the intended employer in any part of the 
world. 

Section III.— THE SALVATION SHIP 

When we have selected a party of emigrants whom we 
believe to be sufficiently prepared to settle on the land 
which has been got ready for them in the Colony over 
Sea, it will be no dismal expatriation which will await 
them. No one who has ever been on the West Coast of 
Ireland when the emigrants were departing, and has 
heard the dismal wails which arise from those who are 
taking leave of each other for the last time on earth, can 
fail to sympathize with the horror excited in many minds 
by the very word emigration. But when our party sets 
out, there will be no violent wrenching of home ties. In 
our ship we shall export them all — father, mother, 
and children. The individuals will be grouped in fam- 
•ilies, and the families will, on the Farm Colony, have 
been for some months past more or less near neighbors, 
meeting each other in the field, in the workshops, and 
in the Religious Services. It will resemble nothing so 
much as the unmooring of a little piece of England, and 
towing it across the sea to find a safe anchorage in a 
sunnier clime. The ship which takes out emigrants will 
bring back the produce of the farms, and constant trav- 
eling to and fro will lead more than ever to the feeling 
that we and our ocean-sundered brethren are members of 
one family. 



192 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

No one who has ever crossed the ocean can have failed 
to be impressed with the mischief that comes to emi- 
grants when they are on their way to their destination. 
Many and many a girl has dated her downfall from the 
temptations which beset her while journeying to a land 
where she had hoped to find a happier future. 

"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do,' 
and he must have his hands full on board an emigrant 
ship. Look into the steerage at any time, and you will 
find boredom inexpressible on every face. The men 
have nothing to do, and an incident of no more impor- 
tance than the appearance of a sail upon the distant 
horizon is an event which makes the whole ship talk. I 
do not see why this should be so. Of course, in the 
case of conveying passengers and freight, with the ut- 
most possible expedition, for short distances, it would 
be idle to expect that either time or energies could be 
spared for the employment or instruction of the passen- 
gers. 

But the case is different when, instead of going to 
America, the emigrant turns his face to South Africa 
or remote Australia. Then, even with the fastest steam- 
ers, they must remain some weeks or months upon the 
high seas. The result is that habits of idleness are con- 
tracted, bad acquaintances are formed, and very often 
the moral and religious work of a lifetime is undone. 

To avoid these evil consequences, I think we should 
be compelled to have a ship of our own as soon as pos- 
sible. A sailing vessel might be found the best adapted 
for the work. Leaving out the question of time, which 
would be of very secondary importance with us, the con- 
struction of a sailing ship would afford more space for the 
accommodation of emigrants and for industrial occupation, 
and would involve considerably less working expenses, 
besides costing very much less at the onset, even if we 



AND THE WAY OUT 193 

did not have one given to us, which I should think would 
be very probable. 

All the emigrants would be under the charge of Army 
Officers, and instead of the voyage being demoralizing, 
it would be made instructive and profitable. From leav- 
ing London to landing at their destination, all Colonists 
would be under watchful oversight, could receive in- 
struction in those particulars where they were still 
needing it, and be subjected to influences that would be 
beneficial every way. 

Then we have seen that one of the great difficulties in 
the direction of emigration is the cost of transport. The 
expense of conveying a man from England to Australia, 
occupying as it does some seven or eight weeks, arises 
not so much from the expense ^connected with the work- 
ing of the vessel which carries him, as the amount of 
provisions he consumes during the passage. Now, with 
this plan I think that the emigrants might be made to 
earn at least a portion of this outlay. There is no rea- 
son wh}^ a man should not work on board ship any more 
than on land. Of course, nothing much could be done 
when the weather was very rough; but the average num- 
ber of days during which it would be impossible for 
passengers to employ themselves profitably in the time 
spent between the Channel and Cape Town or Australia 
would be comparatively few. 

When the ship was pitching or rolling, work would be 
difficult; but even then, when the Colonists get their 
sea-legs, and are free from the qualmishness which over- 
takes landsmen when first getting afloat, I cannot see 
why they should not engage in some form of industrial 
work far more profitable than yawning and lounging about 
the deck, to say nothing of the fact that by so doing they 
would lighten the expense of their transit. The sailors, 
firemen, engineers, and everybody else connected with a 



194 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

vessel have to work, and there is no reason why our Col- 
onists should not work also. 

Of course, this method would require special arrange- 
ments in the fitting up of the vessel, which, if it were 
our own, it would not be difficult to make. At first sight 
it may seem difficult to find employments on board ship 
which could be engaged in to advantage, and it might not 
be found possible to fix up every individual right away; 
but I think there would be very few of the class and 
character of people we should take out, with the prior 
instructions they would have received, who would not 
have fitted themselves into some useful labor before the 
voyage ended. 

To begin with, there would be a large amount of the 
ordinary ship's work that the Colonists could perform, 
such as the preparation of food, serving it out, cleaning 
the decks and fittings of the ship generally, together with 
the loading and unloading of cargo. All these operations 
could be readily done under the direction of permanent 
hands. Then, shoemaking, knitting, sewing, tailoring, 
and other kindred occupations, could be engaged in. I 
should think sewing-machines could be worked, and, 
one way or another, any amount of garments could be 
manufactured, which would find ready and profitable sale 
on landing, either among the Colonists themselves, or 
with the people round about. 

Not only would the ship thus be a perfect hive of in- 
dustry, it would also be a floating temple. The Captain, 
Officers, and every member of the crew would be Salva- 
tionists, and all, therefore, alike interested in the enter- 
prise. Moreover, the probabilities are that we should ob- 
tain the service of the ship's officers and crew in the 
most inexpensive manner, in harmony with the usages 
of the Army everywhere else, men serving from love, and 
not as a mere business. The effect produced by our 



AND THE WAY OUT 105 

ship cruising slowly southwards, testifying to the reality 
of a Salvation for both worlds, calling at all convenient 
ports, would constitute a new kind of mission work, and 
drawing out everywhere a large amount of warm, prac- 
tical sympathy. At present the influence of those who 
go down to the sea in ships is not always in favor of 
raising the morals and religion of the dwellers in the 
places where they come. Here, however, would be one 
ship at least whose appearance foretold no disorder, 
gave rise to no debauchery, and from whose capacious 
hull would stream forth an Army of men, who, instead 
of thronging the grog-shops and other haunts of licen- 
tious indulgence, would occupy themselves with explain- 
ing and proclaiming the religion of the Love of God and 
the Brotherhood of Man. 



CHAPTER V 

MORE CRUSADES 

I have now sketched out briefly the leading features of 
the threefold Scheme by which I think a way can be 
opened out of "Darkest England," by which its forlorn 
denizens can escape into the light and freedom of a new 
Jife. But it is not enough to make a clear, broad road 
out of the heart of this dense and matted jungle forest; 
its inhabitants are in many cases so degraded, so hope- 
less, so utterly desperate, that we shall have to do some- 
thing more than make roads. As we read in the parable, 
it is of ten not enough that the feast be prepared and the 
guests be bidden; we must needs go into the highways 
and byways and compel them to come in. So it is not 
enough to provide our City Colony and our Farm Col- 
ony, and then rest on our oars as if we had done our 
work. That kind of thing will not save the Lost. 

It is necessary to organize rescue expeditions to free 
the miserable wanderers from their captivity, and bring 
them out into the larger liberty and the fuller life. 
Talk about Stanley and Emin ! There is not one of us but 
has an Emin somewhere or other in the heart of Darkest 
England, whom we ought to sally forth to rescue. Our 
Emins have the Devil for their Mahdi, and when we get 
to them we find that it is their friends and neighbors 
who hold them back, and they are, oh, so irresolute! 
It needs each of us to be as indomitable as Stanley, to 
burst through all obstacles, to force our way right to the 

196 



AND THE WAY OUT 197 

centre of things, and then to labor with the poor pris- 
oner of vice and crime with all our might. But had not 
the Expeditionary Committee furnished the financial 
means whereby a road was opened to the sea, both Stan- 
ley and Emin would probably have beei? in the heart of 
Darkest Africa to this day. This Scheme is our Stanley 
Expedition. The analogy is very close. I propose to 
make a road clear down to the sea. But alas! our poor 
Emin! Even when the road is open, he halts and 
lingers and doubts. First he will, and then he won't, 
and nothing less than the irresistible pressure of a 
friendly and stronger purpose will constrain him to take 
the road which has been opened for him at such a cost 
of blood and treasure. I now, therefore, proceed to 
sketch some of the methods by which we shall attempt 
to save the lost and to rescue those who are perishing 
in the midst of "Darkest England." 

Section I.— A SLUM CRUSADE— OUR SLUM 
SISTERS 

When Professor Huxley lived as a medical officer in 
the East of London he acquired a knowledge of the 
actual condition of the life of many of its populace 
which led him long afterw^ards to declare that the sur- 
roundings of the savages of New Guinea were much 
more conducive to the leading of a decent human ex- 
istence than those in which many of the East-Enders 
live. Alas, it is not only in London that such lairs 
exist in which the savages of civilization lurk and 
breed. All the great towns in both the Old World and 
the New have their slums, in which huddle together, m 
festering and verminous filth, men, women, and children. 
They correspond to the lepers who thronged the lazar- 
houses of the Middle Ages. 

As in those days St. Francis of Assissi and the heroic 



198 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

band of saints who gathered under his orders were wont 
to go and lodge with the lepers at the city gates, so the 
devoted souls who have enlisted in the Salvation 
Army take up their quarters in the heart of the worst 
slums. But whereas the Friars were men, our Slum 
Brigade is composed of women. I have a hundred of them 
under my orders, young women for the most part, quar- 
tered all of them in outposts in the heart of the Devil's 
country. Most of them are the children of the poor, 
who have known hardship from their youth up. Some 
are ladies born and bred, who have not been afraid to 
exchange the comfort of a West End drawing-room for 
service among the vilest of the vile, and a residence in 
small and fetid rooms whose walls were infested with 
vermin. They live the life of the Crucified for the sake 
of the men and women for whom He lived and died. 
They form one of the branches of the activity of the Army 
upon which I dwell with deepest sympathy. They are 
at the front; they are at close quarters with the enemy. 

To the dwellers in decent homes who occupy cush- 
ioned pews in fashionable churches, there is something 
strange and quaint in the language they hear read from 
the Bible, language which habitually refers to the Devil 
as an actual personality, and to the struggle against sin 
and uncleanness as if it were a hand-to-hand death wres- 
tle with the legions of Hell. To our little sisters who 
dwell in an atmosphere heavy with curses, among peo- 
ple sodden with drink, in quarters where sin and un- 
cleanness are universal, all these Biblical sayings are 
as real as the quotations of yesterday's price of Consols 
are to a City man. They dwell in the midst of Hell, 
and in their daily warfare with a hundred devils it 
seems incredible to them that anyone can doubt the ex- 
istence of either one or the other. 

The Slurn Sister is what her name implies — the Sister 



AND THE WAY OUT 1 99 

of the Slum. They go forth In Apostolic fashion, two- 
and-two, living in a couple of the same kind of dens or 
rooms as are occupied by the people themselves, differ- 
ing only in the cleanliness and order, and the few articles 
of furniture which they contain. Here they live all the 
year round, visiting the sick, looking after the children, 
showing the women how to keep themselves and their 
homes decent, often discharging the sick mother's duties 
themselves; cultivating peace, advocating temperance, 
counseling in temporalities, and ceaselessly preaching 
the religion of Jesus Christ to the Outcast of Society. 

I do not like to speak of their work — words fail me,' 
and what I say is so unworthy the theme. I prefer to 
quote two descriptions by Journalists who have seen 
these girls at work in the field. The first is taken from 
a long article which Julia Hayes Percy contributed to 
the New York World, describing a visit paid by her to 
the slum quarters of the Salvation Army in Cherry Hill 
Alleys, in the Whitechapel of New York: 

Twenty-four hours in the slums — just a night and a 
day — yet into them were crowded such revelations of 
misery, depravity, and degradation as having once been 
gazed upon, life can never be the same afterwards. 
Around and above this blighted neighborhood flows the 
tide of active, prosperous life. Men and women travel 
past in street cars, by the Elevated Railroad, and across 
the bridge, and take no thought of its wretchedness, of 
the criminals bred there, and of the disease engendered 
by its foulness. It is a fearful menace to the public 
health, both moral and physical, yet the multitude is as 
heedless of danger as the peasant who makes his house 
and plants green vineyards and olives above Vesuvian 
fires. We are almost as careless and quite as unknow- 
ing as we pass the bridge in the late afternoon. 

Our immediate destination is the Salvation Army Bar- 
racks in Washington Street, and we are going finally to 
the Salvation Officers — two young women — who have been 
dwelling and doing a noble mission work for months in 



200 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

one of the worst corners of New York's most wretched 
quarters. These Officers are not living under the segis of 
the Army, however. The blue-bordered flag is furled out 
of sight, the uniforms and poke bonnets are laid away, 
and there are no drums or tambourines. "The banner 
over them is love" of their fellow-creatures among whom 
they dwell upon an equal plane of poverty, wearing no 
better clothes than the rest, eating coarse and scanty food, 
and sleeping upon hard cots or upon the floor. Their lives 
are consecrated to God's service among the poor of the 
earth. One is a woman in the early prime of vigorous 
life, the other a girl of eighteen. The elder of these de- 
voted women is awaiting us at the barracks to be our 
guide to Slumdom. She is tall, slender, and clad in a 
coarse brown gown, mended with patches. A big ging- 
ham apron, artistically rent in several places, is tied 
about her waist. She wears an old plaid woolen shawl 
and an ancient brown straw hat. Her dress indicates 
extreme poverty, her face denotes perfect peace. "This 
is Em," says Mrs. Ballington Booth, and after this in- 
troduction we sally forth. 

More and more wretched grows the district as we pene- 
trate further. Em pauses before a dirty, broken, smoke- 
dimmed window, through which in a dingy room are seen 
a party of roughs — dark-looking men — drinking and 
squabbling at a table. "They are our neighbors in the 
front." We enter the hall-way and proceed to the 
rear room. It is tiny, but clean and warm. Afire burns 
in the little cracked stove, which stands up bravely on 
three legs, with a brick eking out its support at the 
fourth corner. A tin lamp stands on the table; half a 
dozen chairs, one of which has arms, but must have re- 
nounced its rockers long ago, and a packing box, upon 
which we deposit our shawls, constitute the furniture. 
Opening from this is a small dark bedroom, with one 
cot made up and another folded against the wall. 
Against a door, which must communicate with the 
front room, in which we saw the disagreeable-looking 
men sitting, is a wooden table for the hand-basin. A 
small trunk and a barrel of clothing complete the 
inventory. 

Em's sister in the slum work gives us a sweet, shy wel- 



AND THE WAY OUT 201 

come. She is a Swedish girl, with the fair complexion 
and crisp, bright hair peculiar to the Scandinavian 
blonde-type. Her head reminds me of a Grenze that 
hangs in the Louvre, with its low knot of rippling hair, 
which fluffs out from her brow and frames a dear little 
face with soft, childish outlines, a nez retrousse, a tiny 
mouth, like a crushed pink rose, and wistful blue eyes. 
This girl has been a Salvationist for two years. During 
that time she has learned to speak, read, and write Eng- 
lish, while she has constantly labored among the poor 
and wretched. 

The house where we find ourselves was formerly no- 
torious as one of the worst in the Cherry Hill district. It 
has been the scene of some memorable crimes, and 
among them that of the Chinaman who slew his Irish 
wife, after the manner of "Jack the Ripper," on the 
staircase leading to the second floor. A notable change 
has taken place in the tenement since Mattie and Em 
have lived there, and their gentle influence is making 
itself felt in the neighboring houses as well. It is nearly 
eight o'clock when we sally forth. Each of us carries 
a handful of printed slips bearing a text of Scripture 
and a few words of warning to lead the better life. 

"These furnish an excuse for entering places where 
otherwise we could not go," explains Em. 

After arranging a rendezvous, we separate. Mattie 
and Liz go off in one direction, and Em and I in an- 
other. From this our progress seems like a descent into 
Tartarus. Em pauses before a miserable-looking saloon, 
pushes open the low, swinging door, and we go in. It 
is a low-ceiled room, dingy with dirt, dim with the smoke, 
nauseating with the fumes of sour beer and vile liquor. 
A sloppy bar extends along one side, and opposite is a 
long table, with indescribable viands littered over it, in- 
terspersed with empty glasses, battered hats, and cigar 
stumps. A motley crowd of men and women jostle in the 
narrow space. Em speaks to the soberest looking of the 
lot. He listens to her words, others crowd about. 
Marry accept the slips we offer, and gradually, as the 
throng separates to make way, we gain the further end 
of the apartment. Em's serious, sweet, saint-like face 
I follow like a star. All sense of fear slips from me, 



202 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

and a great pity fills my soul as I look upon the various 
types of wretchedness. 

As the night wears on, the whole apartment seems to 
wake up. Every house is alight; the narrow sidewalks and 
filthy streets are full of people. Miserable little chil- 
dren, with sin-stamped faces, dart about like rats; little 
ones who ought to be in their cribs shift for themselves, 
and sleep on cellar-doors and areas, and under carts; a 
few venders are abroad with their wares, but the most of 
the traffic going on is of a different description. Along 
Water Street are women conspicuously dressed in gaudy 
colors. Their heavily painted faces are bloated or 
pinched; they shiver in the raw night air. Liz speaks to 
one, who replies that she would like to talk, but dare not, 
and as she says this an old hag comes to the door and 
cries: 

"Get along; don't hinder her work! " 

During the evening a man to whom Em has been talk- 
ing has told her: 

"You ought to join the Salvation Army ; they are the 
only good women who bother us down here. I don't 
want to lead that sort of life; but I must go where it is 
light and warm and clean after working all day, and 
there isn't anyplace but this to come to," exclaimed the 
man. 

"You will appreciate the plea to-morrow when you see 
how the people live," Em says, as we turn our steps 
toward the tenement room, which seems like an oasis of 
peace and purity after the howling desert we have been 
wandering in. Em and Mattie brew some oatmeal gruel, 
and being chilled and faint, we enjoyed a cup of it. Liz 
and I share a cot in the outer room. We are just going 
to sleep when agonized cries ring out through the night; 
then the tones of a woman's voice pleading pitifully 
reach our ears. We are unable to distinguish her words, 
but the sound is heart-rending. It comes from one of 
those dreadful Water Street houses, and we all feel that 
a tragedy is taking place. There is a sound of crashing 
blows and then silence. 

It is customary in the slums to leave the house door 
open perpetually, which is convenient for tramps, vv^ho 
creep into the hall-ways to sleep at night, thereby saving 



AND THE WAY OUT 303 

the few pence it costs to occupy a "spot" in the cheap 
lodging-houses. Em and Mat keep the corridor without 
their room beautifully clean, and so it has become an es- 
pecial favorite stamping-ground for these vagrants. We 
were told this when Mattie locked and bolted the door 
and then tied the keys and the door-handle together. So 
we understand why there are shuffling steps along the cor- 
ridor, bumping against the panels of the door, and heavy 
breathing without during the long hours of the night. 

All day Em and Mat have been toiling among their 
neighbors, and the night before last they sat up with a 
dying woman. They are worn out and sleep heavily. 
Liz and I lie awake and wait for the coming of the 
morning; we are too oppressed by what we have seen 
and heard to talk. 

In the morning Liz and I peep over into the rear 
houses where we heard those dreadful shrieks in the 
night. There is no sign of life, but we discover enough 
filth to breed diphtheria and typhoid throughout a large 
section. In the area below our window there are several 
inches of stagnant water, in which is heaped a mass of 
old shoes, cabbage heads, garbage, rotten wood, bones, 
rags, and refuse, and a few dead rats. We understand 
now why Em keeps her room full of disinfectants. She 
tells us that she dare not make any appeal to the sani- 
tary authorities, either on behalf of their own or any 
other dwelling, for fear of antagonizing the people, who 
consider such officials as their natural enemies. 

The first visit we pay is up a number of eccentric little 
flights of shaky steps interspersed with twists of passage- 
way. The floor is full of holes. The stairs have been 
patched here and there, but look perilous and sway be- 
neath the feet. A low door on the landing is opened by 
a bundle of rags and filth, out of which issues a wom- 
an's voice in husky tones, bidding us enter. She has 
La grippe. We have to stand very close together, for 
the room is small, and already contains three women, a 
man, a baby, a bedstead, a stove, and indescribable dirt. 
The atmosphere is rank with impurity. The man is evi- 
dently dying. Seven weeks ago he was "gripped." He 
is now in the last stages of pneumonia. Em has tried 
to induce him to be removed to the hospital, and he 



201 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

gasps out his desire "to die in comfort in my own bed." 
Comfort! The "bed" is a rack heaped with rags. Sheets, 
pillow-cases, and night-clothes are not in vogue in the 
slums. A woman lies asleep on the dirty floor with her 
head under the table. Another woman, who has been 
sharing the night watch with the invalid's wife, is finish- 
ing her morning meal, in which roast oysters on the half 
shell are conspicuous. A child that appears never to 
have been washed toddles about the floor and tumbles 
over the sleeping woman's form. Em gives it some 
gruel, and ascertains that its name is "Christine." 

The dirt, crowding, and smells in the first place are 
characteristic of half a dozen others we visited. We 
penetrate to garrets and descend into cellars. The "rear 
houses" are particularly dreadful. Everywhere there is 
decaying garbage lying about, and the dead cats and 
rats are evidence that there are mighty hunters among 
the gamins of the Fourth Ward. We find a number ill 
from the grip and consequent maladies. None of the 
sufferers will entertain the thought of seeking a hospital. 
One probably voices the opinion of the majority when 
he declares that "they'll wash you to death there." For 
these people a bath possesses more terrors than the 
gallows or the grave. 

In one room, with a wee window, lies a woman dying 
of consumption; wasted, wan, and wretched, lying on 
rags and swarming with vermin. Her little son, a boy 
of eight years, nestles beside her. His cheeks are 
scarlet, his eyes feverishly bright, and he has a hard 
cough. 

"It's the chills, mum," says the little chap. 

Six beds stand close together in another room; one is 
empty. Three days ago a woman died there, and the 
body has just been taken away. It hasn't disturbed the 
rest of the inmates to have death present there. A woman 
is Ijnng on the wrecks of a bedstead, slats and posts 
sticking out in every direction from the rags on which 
she reposes. 

"It broke under me in the night, mum," she explains. 

A woman is sick and wants Liz to say a prayer. We 
kneel on the filthy floor. Soon all my faculties are 
absorbed in speculating which will arrive first, the 



AND THE WAY OUT 205 

"Amen" or the "B flat" which is wending its wa}^ towards 
me. This time the bug does not get there, and I enjoy 
grinding him under the sole of my Slum shoe when the 
prayer is ended. 

In another room we find what looks like a corpse. It 
is a woman in ■ an opium stupor. Drunken men are 
brawling around her. 

Returning to our tenement, Em and Liz meet us, and 
we return to our experience. The minor details vary 
slightly, but the story is the same piteous tale of woe every- 
where, and crime abounding, conditions which only 
change to a prison, a plunge in the river, or the Potter's 
field. 

The Dark Continent can show no lower depth of deg- 
radation than that sounded by the dwellers of the dark 
alleys in Cherr)^ Hill. There isn't a vice missing 
in that quarter. Every sin in the Decalogue flourishes in 
that feeder of penitentiaries and prisons. And even as 
its moral foulness permeates and poisons the veins of 
our social life, so the malarial filth with which the local- 
ity reeks must sooner or later spread disease and death. 

An awful picture, truly; but one which is to me irra- 
diated with the love-light which shone in the eyes of 
"Em's serious, sweet, saint-like face." 

Here is my second. It is written by a Journalist who 
had just witnessed the scene in Whitechapel. He 
writes: 

I had just passed Mr. Barnett's church when I was 
stopped by a small crowd at a street corner. There 
were about thirty or forty men, women, and children 
standing loosely together; some others were lounging 
on the opposite side of the street round the door of a 
public-house. In the centre of the crowd was a plain- 
looking little woman in Salvation Army uniform, with 
her eyes closed, praying the "dear Lord that He would 
bless these dear people, and save them, save them now! " 
Moved by curiosity, I pressed through the outer fringe 
of the crowd, and in doing so I noticed a woman of an- 
other kind, also invoking Heaven, but in an altogether 
different fashion. Two dirty, tramp-like men were list- 



206 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

ening to the prayer, standing the while smoking their 
short cutty pipes. For some reason or other they had 
offended the woman, and she was giving them a piece 
of her mind. They stood stolidly silent while she went 
at them like a fiend. She had been good-looking once, 
but was now horribly bloated with drink, and excited by 
passion. I heard both voices at the same time. What 
a contrast! The prayer was over now, and a pleading, 
earnest address was being delivered. 

"You are wrong," said the voice in the centre: "you 
know you are; all this misery and poverty is a proof of 
it. You are prodigals. You have got away from your 
Father's house, and you are rebelling against Him every 
day. Can you wonder that there is so much hunger, 
and oppression, and wretchedness allowed to come upon 
you? In the midst of it all your Father loves you. He 
wants you to return to Him; to turn your backs upon 
your sins; abandon your evil doings; give up the drink 
and the service of the devil. He has given His Son 
Jesus Christ to die for you. He wants to save you. 
Come to His feet. He is waiting. His arms are open. 
I know the devil has got fast hold of you; but Jesus 
will give you grace to conquer him. He will help you 
to master your wicked habits and your love of drink. 
But come to Him now. God is love. He loves me. 
He loves you. He loves us all. He wants to save us 
all." 

Clear and strong the voice, eloquent with the fervor of 
intense feeling, rang through the little crowd, past which 
streamed the ever-flowing tide of East End life. And 
at the same time that I heard this pure and passionate 
invocation to love God and be true to man, I heard a 

voice on the outskirts, and it said this: "You swine! 

I'll knock the vitals out of yer. None of your impu- 
dence to me. your eyes, what do you mean by 

telling me that.^ You know what you ha' done, and now 
you are going to the Salvation Army. I'll let them know 
you, you dirty rascal." The man shifted his pipe. 
"What's the matter?" "Matter!" screamed the virago 

hoarsely; " yer life, don't you know what's the 

matter? I'll matter ye, you hound. By God! I will, 

as sure as I'm alive. Matter! you know what's the 



AND THE WAY out 207 

matter." And 50 she went on, the men standing silently 
smoking until at last she took herself off, her mouth 
full of oaths and cursing, to the public-house. It seemed 
as though the presence, and spirit, and words of the 
Officer, who still went on with the message of mercy, 
had some strange effect upon them, which made these 
poor wretches impervious to the taunting, bitter sar- 
casms of this brazen, blatant virago. 

"God is love." Was it not, then, the accents of God's 
voice that sounded there above the din of the street and 
the swearing of the slums? Yea, verily, and that voice 
ceases not, and will not cease so long as the Slum Sis- 
ters fight under the banner of the Salvation Army. 

To form an idea of the immense amount of good, tem- 
poral and spiritual, which the Slum Sister is doing, you 
need to follow them into the kennels where they live, 
preaching the Gospel with the mop and the scrubbing- 
brush, and driving out the devil with soap and water. 
In one of our Slum posts, where the Officer's rooms 
were on the ground floor, about fourteen other families 
lived in the same house. One little water-closet in the 
back yard had to do service for the whole place. As for 
the dirt, one Officer writes: "It is impossible to scrub the 
Homes; some of them are in such a filthy condition. 
When they have a fire the ashes are left to accumulate 
for days. The table is very seldom, if ever, properly 
cleaned; dirty cups and saucers lie about it, together 
with bits of bread, and if they have bloaters the bones 
and heads are left on the table. Sometimes there are 
pieces of onions mixed up with the rest. The floors are 
in a very much worse condition than the street pave- 
ments, and when they are supposed to clean them they 
do it with about a pint of dirty water. When they wash, 
which is rarely, for washing to them seems an unneces- 
sary work, they do it in a quart or two of water, and 
sometimes boil the things in some old saucepan in 



208 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

which they cook their food. They do this simply because 
they have no larger vessel to wash in. The vermin fall 
off the walls and ceiling on you while you are standing 
in the rooms. Some of the walls are covered with marks 
where they have killed them. Many people in the sum- 
mer sit on the door-steps all night, the reason for this 
being that their rooms are so close from the heat and 
so unendurable from, ^he vermin that they prefer stay- 
ing out in the cool night air. But as they cannot stay 
anywhere long without drinking, they send for beer from 
the neighboring public — alas! never far away — and pass 
it from one doorway to another, the result being singing, 
shouting, and fighting up till three and four o'clock in the 
morning." 

I could fill volumes with stories of the war against 
vermin, which is part of this campaign in the slums, 
but the subject is too revolting to those who are often 
indifferent to the agonies their fellow-creatures suffer, 
so long as their sensitive ears are not shocked by the 
mention of so painful a subject. Here, for instance, is 
a sample of the kind of region in which the Slum Sis- 
ters spend themselves: 

"In an apparently respectable street near Oxford 
Street, the Officers were visiting one day, when they saw 
a very dark staircase leading into a cellar, and thinking 
it possible that someone might be there, they attempted 
to go down, and yet the staircase was so dark they 
thought it impossible for anyone to be there. How- 
ever, they tried again, and groped their way along in the 
dark for some time, until at last they found the door and 
entered the room. At first they could not discern any- 
thing because of the darkness. But after they got used 
to it they saw a filthy room. There was no fire in the 
grate, but the fire-place was heaped up with ashes, an 
accumulation of several weeks at least. At one end of 



AND THE WAY OUT 209 

the room there was an old sack of rags and bones partly 
emptied upon the floor, from which there came a most 
unpleasant odor. At the other end lay an old man very 
ill. The apology for a bed on which he lay was filthy, 
and had neither sheets nor blankets. His covering con- 
sisted of old rags. His poor wife, who attended on him, 
appeared to be a stranger to soap and water. These 
Slum Sisters nursed the old people, and on one occasion 
undertook to do their washing, and they brought it 
home to their copper for this purpose, but it was so in- 
fested with vermin that they did not know how to wash 
it. Their landlady, who happened to see them, forbade 
them ever to bring such stuff there any more. The old 
man, when well enough, worked at his trade, which was 
tailoring. They had two shillings and sixpence per 
week from the parish.' 

Here is a report from the headquarters of our Slum 
Brigade as to the work which the Slum Sisters have 
done. It is almost four years since the Slum Work was 
started in London. The principal work done by our 
first Officers was that of visiting the sick, cleansing the 
homes of the Slummers, and of feeding the hungry. 
The following are a few of the cases of those who have 
gained temporally, as well as spiritually, through our 
work: 

Mrs. W. — Of Haggerston Slum. Heavy drinker; 
wrecked home; husband a drunkard; place dirty and fil- 
thy, terribly poor. Saved now over two years, home 
Ai., plenty of employment at cane-chair bottoming; hus- 
band now saved also. 

Mrs. R. — DruryLane Slum. Husband and wife drunk- 
ards; husband very lazy, only worked when starved into 
it. We found them both out of work, home furniture- 
less, in debt. She got saved, and our lasses prayed for 
him to get work. He did so, and went to it. He fell 
out again a few weeks after, and beat his wife. She 

14 



510 IN t) ARK Est England 

sought employment at charing and office-cleaning, got it, 
and has been regularly at work since. He too got work. 
He is now a teetotaler. The home is very comfortable 
now, and they are putting money in the bank. 

A. M., in the Dials. Was a great drunkard, thrift- 
less; did not go to the trouble of seeking work. Was in 
a Slum meeting, heard the Captain speak on "Seek first 
the Kingdom of God! " called out and said, "Do you 
mean that if I ask God for work. He will give it me?" 
Of course she said, "Yes." He was converted that night, 
found work, and is now employed in the Gas Works, 
Old Kent Road. 

Jimmy is a soldier in the Boro' Slum. Was starving 
when he got converted through being out of work. 
Through joining the Army, he was turned out of his 
home. He found work, and now owns a coffee-stall in 
Billingsgate Market, and is doing well. 

Sergeant R. — Of Marylebone Slum. Used to drink, 
lived in a wretched place in the famous Charles Street; 
had work at two places, at one of which he got 5s. a week, 
and the other los., when he got saved; this was starva- 
tion wages, on which to keep himself, his wife, and 
four children. At the los. a week work he had to de- 
liver drink for a spirit merchant; feeling condemned over 
it, he gave it up, and was out of work for weeks. The 
brokers were put in, but the Lord rescued him just in 
time. The 5s. a week employer took him afterwards at 
i8s., and he is now earning 22s., and has left the ground- 
floor Slum tenement for a better house. 

H. — Nine Elms Slum. Was saved on Easter Mon- 
day; out of work several weeks before; is a laborer; seems 
very earnest, in terrible distress. We allow his wife 2s. 
6d. a week for cleaning the hall (to help them). In ad- 
dition to that, she gets another 2s. 6d. for nursing, and 
on that husband, wife, and a couple of children pay the 
rent of 2s. a week and drag out an existence. I have 
tried to get work for this man, but have failed. 

T. — Of Rotherhithe Slum. Was a great drunkard; is 
a carpenter; saved about nine months ago, but, having 
to work in a public-house on a Sunday, he gave it up; 



AND THE WAY OUT 2 1 1 

he has not been able to get another job, and has nothing 
but what we have given him for making seats. 

Emma Y. — Now a Soldier of the Marylebone Slum Post, 
was a wild young Slummer when we opened in the Boro' ; 
could be generally seen in the streets, wretchedly clad, 
her sleeves turned up, idle, only worked occasionally; 
got saved two years ago, had terrible persecution in her 
home. We got her a situation, where she has been for 
nearly eighteen months, and is now a good servant. 

Lodging-House Frank. — At twenty-one came into the 
possession of ^750, but, through drink and gambling, lost 
it all in six or eight months, and for over seven years he 
has tramped about from Portsmouth, through the South 
of England, and South Wales, from one lodging-house 
to another, often starving, drinking when he could get 
any money; thriftless, idle, no heart for work. We 
found him in a lodging-house six months ago, living 
with a fallen girl; got them both saved and married; 
five weeks after he got work as a carpenter at 30s. a week. 
He has a home of his own now, and promises well to 
make an Officer. 

The Officer who furnishes the above reports goes on to 
say: 

I can't call the wretched dwelling home, to which 
drink had brought Brother and Sister X. From a life of 
luxury, they drifted down by degrees to one room in a 
Slum tenement, surrounded by drunkards and the vilest 
characters. Their lovely half-starved children were 
compelled to listen to the foulest language, and hear 
fighting and quarreling, and alas, alas, not only to hear 
it in the adjoining rooms, but witness it within their 
own. For over two years they have been delivered from 
the power of the cursed drink. The old rookery is gone, 
and now they have a comfortably furnished home. Their 
children give evidence of being truly converted, and have 
a lively gratitude for their father's salvation. One boy of 
eight said, last Christmas Day, "I remember when we 
had only dry bread for Christmas; but to-day we had a 
goose and two plum puddings." Brother X. was dis- 
missed in disgrace from his situation as commercial 



213 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

traveler before his conversion; to-day he is chief man, 
next to his employer, in a large business house. 

He says: 

I am perfectly satisfied that very few of the lowest 
strata of Society are unwilling to work if they could get 
it. The wretched hand-to-mouth existence many of 
them have to live disheartens them, and makes life with 
them either a feast or a famine, and drives those who have 
brains enough to crime. 

The results of our work in the Slums may be put 
down as: 

"ist. A marked improvement in the cleanliness of the 
homes and children; disappearance of vermin, and a 
considerable lessening of drunkenness. 

"2d. A greater respect for true religion, and espe- 
cially that of the Salvation Army. 

"3d. A much larger amount of work is being done 
now than before our going there. 

"4th. The rescue of many fallen girls. 

"5th. The Shelter work seems to us a development of 
the Slum work. 

In connection with our Scheme, we propose to imme- 
diately increase the numbers of these Slum Sistens, and 
to add to their usefulness by directly connecting their 
operations with the Colony, enabling them thereby to 
help the poor people to conditions of life more favor- 
able to health, morals, and religion. This would be ac- 
complished by getting some of them employment in the 
City, which must necessarily result in better homes and 
surroundings, or in the opening up for others of a straight 
course from the Slums to the Farm Colony. 

Section II.— THE TRAVELING HOSPITAL 

Of course, there is only one real remedy for this state 
of things, and that is to take the people away from the 



AND THE WAY OUT 213 

wretched hovels in which they sicken, suffer, and die 
with less comfort and consideration than the cattle in 
the stalls and sties of many a country squire. And this 
is certainly our ultimate ambition, but for the present 
distress something might be done en the lines of district 
nursing, which is only in very imperfect operation. 

I have been thinking that if a little Van, drawn by a 
pony, could be fitted up with what is ordinarily required 
by the sick and dying, and trot round amongst these 
abodes of desolation, with a couple of nurses trained for 
the business, it might be of immense service, without 
being very costly. They could have a few simple instru- 
ments, so as to draw a tooth or lance an abscess, and 
what was absolutely requisite for simple surgical opera- 
tions. A little oil-stove for hot water to prepare a poul- 
tice, or a hot fomet, or a soap wash, and a number of 
other necessaries for nursing, could be carried with 
ease. 

The need for this will only be appreciated by those 
who know how utterly bereft of all the comforts and con- 
veniences for attending to the smallest matters in sick- 
ness which prevails in these abodes of wretchedness. It 
may be suggested, Why don't the people when they are 
ill go to the hospital? To which we simply reply that 
they won't. They cling to their own bits of rooms and 
to the companionship of the members of their own fam- 
ilies, brutal as they often are, and would rather stay and 
suffer, and die in the midst of all the filth and squalor 
that surrounds them in their own dens, than go to the 
big house, which, to them, looks very like a prison. 

The sufferings of the wretched occupants of the Slums 
that we have been describing, when sick and unable to 
help themselves, makes th© organization of some system 
of nursing them in their own homes a Christian duty. 
Here are a handful of cases, gleaned almost at random 



214 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

from the reports of our Slum Sisters, which will show 
the value of the agency above described: 

Many of those who are sick have often only one room, 
and often several children. The Officers come across 
many cases where, with no one to look after them, they 
have to lie for hours without food or nourishment of 
any kind. Sometimes the neighbors will take them in 
a cup of tea. It is really a mystery how they live. 

A poor woman in Drury Lane was paralyzed. She had 
no one to attend to her; she lay on the floor, on a stuffed 
sack, and an old piece of cloth to cover her. Although 
it was winter, she very seldom had any fire. She had 
no garments to wear, and but very little to eat. 

Another poor woman, who was very ill, was allowed a 
little money by her daughter to pay her rent and get her 
food; but very frequently she had not the strength to 
light a fire or to get herself food. She was parted from 
her husband because of his cruelty. Often she lay for 
hours without a soul to visit or help her. 

Adjutant McClellan found a man lying on a straw 
mattress in a very bad condition. The room was filthy; 
the smell made the Officer feel ill. The man had been 
lying for days without having anything done for him. A 
cup of water was by his side. The Officers vomited 
from the terrible smells of this place. 

Frequently sick people are found who need the con- 
tinual application of hot poultices, but who are left with 
a cold one for hours. 

In Marylebone the Officers visited a poor woman who 
was very ill. She lived in an underground back kitchen, 
with hardly a ray of light and never a ray of sunshine. 
Her bed was made up on some egg boxes. She had no 
one to look after her, except a drunken daughter, who 
very often, when drunk, used to knock the poor old 
woman about very badly. The Officers frequently found 
that she had not eaten any food up to twelve o'clock, 
not even a cup of tea to drink. The only furniture in 
the room was a small table, an old fender, and a box. 
The vermin seemed to be innumerable. 

A poor woman was taken very ill, but, having a small 
family, she felt she must get up and wash them. While 



AND THE WAY OUT 215 

she was washing the baby she fell down and was unable 
to move. Fortunately a neighbor came in soon after to 
ask some question, and saw her lying there. She at 
once ran and fetched another neighbor. Thinking the 
poor woman was dead, they got her into bed and sent 
for a doctor. He said she was in consumption, and re- 
quired quiet and nourishment. This the poor woman 
could not get, on account of her children. She got up a 
few hours afterwards. As she was going down-stairs 
she fell down again. The neighbor picked her up and 
put her back to bed, where for a long time she lay thor- 
oughly prostrated. The Officers took her case in hand, 
fed and nursed her, cleaned her room, and generally 
looked after her. 

In another dark slum the Officers found a poor old woman 
in an underground back kitchen. She was suffering with 
some complaint. When they knocked at the door she 
was terrified for fear it was the landlord. The room 
was in a most filthy condition, never having been cleaned. 
She had a penny paraffin lamp, which filled the room 
with smoke. The old woman was at times totally unable 
to do anything for herself. The Officers looked after her. 

Section III.— REGENERATION OF OUR CRIMINALS 
—THE PRISON GATE BRIGADE 

Our Prisons ought to be reforming institutions, which 
should turn men out better than when they entered their 
doors. As a matter of fact, they are often quite the 
reverse. There are few persons in this world more to 
be pitied than the poor fellow who has served his first 
term of imprisonment or finds himself outside the jail 
doors without a character, and often wichout a friend 
in the world. Here, again, the process of centralization, 
gone on apace of late years, however desirable it may 
be in the interests of administration, tells with disas- 
trous effects on the poor wretches who are its victims. 

In the old times, when a man was sent to prison, the 
jail stood within a stone's throw of his home. When 



C 1 6 I N DARKEST ENGLAND 

he came out he was at any rate close to his old friends 
and relations, who would take him in and give him a help- 
ing hand to start once more a new life. But what has 
happened owing to the desire of the Government to do 
away with as many local jails as possible? The pris- 
oners, when convicted, are sent long distances by rail to 
the central prisons, and on coming out find themselves 
cursed with the brand of the jail-bird, so far from home, 
character gone, and with no one to fall back upon r 
counsel, or to give them a helping hand. No wonder it 
is reported that vagrancy has much increased in some 
large towns on account of discharged prisoners taking to 
begging, having no other resource. 

In the competition for work no employer is likely to take 
a man who is fresh from jail; nor are mistresses likely 
to engage a servant whose last character was her dis- 
charge from one of Her Majesty's prisons. It is incred- 
ible how much mischief is often done by well-meaning 
persons, who, in struggling towards the attainment of 
an excellent end — such, for instance, as that of economy 
and efficiency in prison administration — forget entirely 
the bearing which their reforms may have upon the 
prisoners themselves. 

The Salvation Army has at least one great qualifica- 
tion for dealing with this question. I believe I am in 
the proud position of being at the head of the only relig- 
ious body which has always some of its mem.bers in 
jail for conscience sake. We are also one of the few re- 
ligious bodies which can boast that many of those who 
are in our ranks have gone through terms of penal servi- 
tude. We, therefore, know the prison at both ends. 
Some men go to jail because they are better than their 
neighbors, most men because they are worse. Martyrs, 
patriots, reformers of all kinds belong to the first category. 
No great cause has ever achieved a triumph before it has 



AND THE WAY OUT 217 

furnished a certain quota to the prison population. The 
repeal of an unjust law is seldom carried until a certain 
number of those who are laboring for the reform have 
experienced in their own persons the hardships of fine and 
imprisonment. Christianity itself would never have 
triumphed over the Paganism of ancient Rome had the 
early Christians not been enabled to testify from the 
dungeon and the arena as to the sincerity and serenity 
of soul with which they could confront their persecutors, 
and from that time down to the successful struggles of 
our people for the right of public meeting at Whit- 
church and elsewhere, the Christian religion and the 
liberties of men have never failed to demand their quota 
of martyrs for the faith. 

When a man has been to prison in the best of causes, 
he learns to look at the question of prison discipline 
with a much more sympathetic eye for those who are 
sent there, even for the worst offenses, than judges and 
legislators who only look at the prison from the outside. 
"A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind," and it is an 
immense advantage to us in dealing with the criminal 
classes that many of our best Officers have themselves 
been in a prison cell. Our people, thank God, have 
never learned to regard a prisoner as a mere convict — A 
234. He is ever a human being to them, who is to be 
cared for and looked after as a mother looks after her 
ailing child. At present there seems to be but little 
likelihood of any real reform in the interior of our pris- 
ons. We have therefore to wait until the men come out- 
side in order to see what can be done. Our work begins 
when that of the prison authorities ceases. We have 
already had a good deal of experience in this work, both 
here and in Bombay, in Ceylon, in South Africa, in Aus- 
tralia, and elsewhere, and as the net result of our expe- 
rience we proceed now to set forth the measures we in- 



218 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

tend to adopt, some of which are already in successfiJs. 
operation. 

1. We propose the opening of Homes for this class 
as near as possible to the different jails. One for men 
has just been taken at King's Cross, and will be occu- 
pied as soon as it can be got ready. One for women 
must follow immediately. Others will be required in 
different parts of the Metropolis, and contiguous to each 
of its great prisons. Connected with these Homes will 
be workshops in which the inmates will be regularly em- 
ployed until such time as we can get them work else- 
where. For this class must also work, not only as a 
discipline, but as the means for their own support. 

2. In order to save, as far as possible, first offenders 
from the contamination of prison life, and to prevent 
the formation of further evil companionships, and the 
recklessness which follows the loss of character entailed by 
imprisonment, we would offer, in the Police and Crimi- 
nal Courts, to take such offenders under our wing as 
were anxious to come and willing to accept our regula- 
tions. The confidence of both magistrates and prisoners 
would, we think, soon he secured, the friends of the 
latter would be mostly on our side, and the probability, 
therefore, is that we should soon have a large number 
of cases placed under our care on what is known as 
"suspended sentence," to be brought up for judgment 
when called upon, the record of each sentence to be 
wiped out on report being favorable of their conduct in 
the Salvation Army Home. 

3. We should seek access to the prisons in order to 
gain such acquaintance with the prisoners as would en- 
able us the more effectually to benefit them on their dis- 
charge. This privilege, we think, would be accorded us 
by the prison authorities when they became acquainted 
with the nature of our work and the remarkable results 



AND THE WAY OUT 210 

which followed it. The right of entry into the jails 
has already been conceded to our people in Australia, 
where they have free access to, and communion withj the 
inmates while undergoing their sentences. Prisoners 
are recommended to come to us by the jail authorities, 
who also forward to our people information of the date 
and hour when they leave, in order that thej^ may be met 
on their release. 

4. We propose to meet the criminals at the prison 
gates with the offer of immediate admission to our 
Homes. The general rule is for them to be met by their 
friends or old associates, who ordinarily belong to the 
same class. Any way, it would be an exception to the 
rule were they not all alike believers in the comforting 
and cheering power of the intoxicating cup. Hence the 
public-house is invariably adjourned to, where plans for 
further crime are often decided upon straight away, re- 
sulting frequently, before many weeks are past, in the 
return of the liberated convict to the confinement from 
which he has just escaped. Having been accustomed 
during confinement to the implicit submission of them- 
selves to the will of another, the newly-discharged pris- 
oner is easily influenced by whoever first gets hold of him. 
Now, we propose to be beforehand with these old com- 
panions by taking the jail-bird under our wing and set- 
ting before him an open door of hope the moment he 
crosses the threshold of the prison, assuring him that if 
he is willing to work and comply with our discipline, he 
never need know want any more. 

5. We shall seek from the authorities the privilege of 
supervising and reporting upon those who are dis- 
charged with tickets-of- leave, so as to free them from 
the humiliating and harassing duty of having to report 
themselves at the police stations. 

6. We shall find suitable employment for each individ- 



320 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

ual. If not in possession of some useful Irade or call- 
ing, we will teach him one. 

7. After a certain length of residence in these Homes, 
if consistent evidence is given of a sincere purpose to 
live an honest life, he will be transferred to the Farm 
Colony, unless in the meanwhile friends or old employers 
take him off our hands, or some other form of occupa- 
tion is obtained, in which case he will still be the ob- 
ject of watchful care. 

We shall offer to all the ultimate possibility of being 
restored to Society in the country, or transferred to com- 
mence life afresh in another. 

With respect to results we can speak very positively, 
for although our operations up to the present, except for 
a short time some three years ago, have been limited, 
and unassisted by the important accessories above de- 
scribed, yet the success that has attended them has been 
most remarkable. The following are a few instances 
which might be multiplied: 

J. W. was met at prison gate by the Captain of the 
Home and offered help. He declined to come at once, 
as he had friends in Scotland who he thought would help 
him; but if they failed, he promised to come. It was 
his first conviction, and he had six months for robbing 
his employer. His trade was that of a baker. In a 
few days he presented himself at the Home, and was 
received. In the course of a few weeks, he professed 
conversion, and gave every evidence of the change. For 
four months he was cook and baker in the kitchen, and 
at last a situation as second hand was offered for him, 
with the J. S. Sergeant-Major of the Congress Hall 
Corps. That is three years ago. He is there to-day, 
saved, and satisfactory; a thoroughly useful and respect- 
able man. 

J. P. was an old offender. He was met at Millbank 
on the expiration of his last term (five years), and 
brought to the Home, where he worked at his trade 
— a tailor. Eventually he got a situation, and has since 



AND THE WAY OUT 221 

married. He has now a good home, the confidence of 
his neighbors, is well saved, and a soldier of the 
Hackney Corps. 

C. M. Old offender, and penal servitude case. Was 
induced to come to the Home, got saved, was there for 
a long period, offered for the work, and went into the 
Field, was Lieutenant for two years, and eventually mar- 
ried. He is now a respectable mechanic and soldier of 
a Corps in Derbyshire. 

J. W. Was manager in a large West End millinery 
establishment. He was sent out with two ten-pound 
packages of silver to change. On his way he met a com- 
panion and was induced to take a drink. In the tavern 
the companion made an excuse to go outside and did not 
return, and W. found one of the packages had been ab- 
stracted from his outside pocket. He was afraid to re- 
turn, and decamped with the other into the country. 
Whilst in a small town he strolled into a Mission Hall; 
there happened to be a hitch in the proceedings, the or- 
ganist was absent, a volunteer was called for, and W., 
being a good musician, offered to play. It seems the 
music took hold of him. In the middle of the hymn he 
walked out and went to the police station and gave 
himself up. He got six months. When he came out 
he saw that Happy George, an ex-jail-bird, was an- 
nounced at the Congress Hall. He went to the meeting 
and was induced to come to the Home. He eventually 
got saved, and to-day he is at the head of a Mission work 
in the provinces. 

"Old Dan" was a penal servitude case, and had had sev- 
eral long sentences. He came into the Home and was 
saved. He managed the bootmaking there for a long 
time. He has since gone into business at Hackney, and 
is married. He is of four years' standing, a thorough 
respectable tradesman, and a Salvationist. 

Charles C. has done in the aggregate twenty-three 
years' penal servitude. Was out on license, and got 
saved at the Hull Barracks. At that time he had neg- 
lected to report himself, and had destroyed his license, 
taking an assumed name. When he got saved he gave 
himself up, and was taken before the magistrate, who, 
instead of sending him back to fulfill his sentence, gave 



'2%^ IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

him up to the Army. He was sent to us from Hull by 
our representative, is now in our factory and doing well. 
He is still under police supervision for five years. 

H. Kelso. Also a license man. He had neglected to 
report himself, and was arrested. While before the mag- 
istrate he said he was tired of dishonesty, and would go 
to the Salvation Army if they would discharge him. He 
was sent back to penal servitude. Application was 
made by us to the Home Secretary on his behalf, and 
Mr. Matthews granted his release. He was handed over 
to our Officers at Bristol, brought to London, and is 
now in the Factory, saved and doing well. 

Edwin Watts belongs to Birmingham, is in his forty- 
ninth year, and has been in and out of prison all his 
life. He was at Redhill Reformatory five years, and his 
last term was five years' penal servitude. The Chap- 
lain at Pentonville advised him, if he really meant ref- 
ormation, to seek the Salvation Army on his release. He 
came to Thames Street, was sent to the Workshop, and 
professed salvation the following Sunday at the Shelter. 
This is three months ago. He is quite satisfactory, in- 
dustrious, contented and seemingly godly. 

A. B., gentleman loafer, good prospects; drink and idle- 
ness broke up his home, killed his wife, and got him into 
jail. Presbyterian minister, friend of his family, tried to 
reclaim him, but unsuccessfully. He entered the Pris- 
on Gate Home, became thoroughly saved, distributed 
handbills for the Home, and ultimately got work in a 
large printing and publishing works, where, after three 
years' service, he now occupies a most responsible posi- 
tion. Is an elder in the Presbyterian Church, restored 
to his family, and the possessor of a happy home. 

W. C, a native of London, a good-for-nothing lad, idle 
and dissolute. When leaving England his father 
warned him that if he didn't alter he'd end his days 
on the gallows. Served various sentences on all sorts 
of charges. Over six years ago we took him in hand, 
admitted him into Prison Gate Brigade Home, where he 
became truly saved; he got a job of painting which 
he had learnt in jail, and has married a woman who had 
formerly been a procuress, but had passed through our 
Rescued Sinners' Home, and there became thoroughly 



AND THE WAY OUT 223 

converted. Together they have braved the storms of 
life, both working diligently for their living. They have 
now a happy little home of their own, and are doing 
very well. 

F. X., the son of a Government officer, a drunkard, gam- 
bler, forger, and all-round blackguard; served numerous 
sentences for forgery. On his last discharge was admit- 
ted into Prison Gate Brigade Home, where he staid 
about five months, and became truly saved. Although his 
health was completely shattered from the effects of 
his sinful life, he steadfastly resisted all temptations to 
drink, and kept true to God. Through advertising in the 
War Cry, he found his lost son and daughter, who are 
delighted with the wonderful change in their father. 
They have become regular attendants at our meetings in 
the Temperance Hall. He now keeps a coffee-stall, is 
doing well, and properly saved. 

G. A., 72, spent 23 years in jail, last sentence two 
years for burglary; was a drunkard, gambler, and swearer. 
Met on his discharge by the Prison Gate Brigade, admit- 
ted into Home, where he remained four months, and be- 
came truly saved. He is living a consistent, godly life, 
and is in employment. 

C. D., aged 64, opium-smoker, gambler, blackguard, 
separated from wife and family, and eventually landed 
in jail, was met on his discharge and admitted into 
Prison Gate Brigade Home, was saved, and is now 
restored to his wife and family, and giving satisfaction 
in his employment. 

S. T. was an idle, loafing, thieving, swearing, disrepu- 
table young man, who lived, when out of jaij, with the 
low prostitutes of Little Bourke Street. Was taken in 
hand by our Prison Gate Brigade Officers, who got him 
saved, then found him work. After a few months he 
expressed a desire to work for God, and although a 
cripple and having to use a crutch, such was his earnest- 
ness that he was accepted and has done good service as 
an Army officer. His testimony is good and his life 
consistent. He is, indeed, a marvel of Divine grace. 

M. J., a young man holding a high position in England, 
got into a fast set; thought a change to the Colonies 



224 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

would be to his advantage. Started ior Australia with 
^200 odd, of which he spent a good portion on board 
ship in drink, soon dissipated the balance on landing, 
and woke up one morning to find himself in jail with 
delirium tremens on him, no money, his luggage lost, 
and without a friend on the whole continent. On his 
discharge he entered our Prison Gate Home, became 
converted, and is now occupying a responsible position 
in a Colonial Bank. 

B. C, a man of good birth, education, and position; 
drank himself out of home and friends and into jail, on 
leaving which he came to our Home; was saved, exhib- 
iting by an earnest and truly consistent life the depth of 
his conversion, being made instrumental while with us 
in the salvation of many who, like himself, had come to 
utter destitution and crime through drink. He is now 
in a first-class situation, getting ^300 a year, wife and 
family restored, the possessor of a happy home, and the 
love of God shed abroad in it. 

I do not produce these samples, which are but a few, 
taken at random from the many, for the purpose of boast- 
ing. The power which has wrought these miracles is 
not in me nor in my Officers; it is power which comes 
down from above. But I think I may fairly point to 
these cases, in which our instrumentality has been 
blessed to the plucking of these brands from the burning, 
as affording some justification for the plea to be enabled 
to go on with this work on a much more extended 
scale. If any ether organization, religious or secular, 
can show similar trophies as the result of such limited 
operations as ours have hitherto been among the criminal 
population, I am willing to give place to them. All 
that I want is to have the work done. 

Section IV.— EFFECTUAL DELIVERANCE FOR 
THE DRUNKARD 

The number, misery, and hopeless condition of the 



AND THE WAY OUT 225 

slaves of strong drink, of both sexes, have been already 
dealt with at considerable length. 

We have seen that there are in Great Britain one 
million of men and women, or thereabouts, completely 
under the domination of this cruel appetite. The utter 
helplessness of Society to deal with the drunkard has 
been proved again and again, and confessed on all hands 
b}^ those who have had experience on the subject. As 
we have before said, the general feeling of all those who 
have tried their hands at this kind of business is one of 
despair. They think the present race of drunkards must 
be left to perish; that every species of effort having 
proved vain, the energies expended in the endeavor to 
rescue the parents will be laid out to greater advantages 
upon the children. 

There is a great deal of truth in all this. Our own 
efforts have been successful in a very remarkable degree. 
Some of the bravest, most devoted, and successful work- 
ers in our ranks are men and women who were once the 
most abject slaves of the intoxicating cup. Instances of 
this have been given already. We might multiply them 
by thousands. Still, when compared with the ghastly 
array which the drunken army presents to-day, those 
rescued are comparatively few. The great reason for 
this is the simple fact that the vast majority of those 
addicted to the cup are its veritable slaves. No amount 
of reasoning, or earthly or religious considerations, can 
have any effect upon a man who is so completely under 
the mastery of this passion that he cannot break away 
from it, although he sees the most terrible consequences 
staring him in the face. 

The drunkard promises and vows, but promises and 
vows in vain. Occasionally he will put forth frantic 
efforts to deliver himself, but only to fall again in the 
presence of the opportunity. The insatiable crave con- 

^5 



226 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

trols him. He cannot get away from it. It compels 
him to drink, whether he will or not, and, unless delivered 
by an Almighty hand, he will drink himself into a drunk 
ard's grave and a drunkard's hell. 

Our annals teem with successful rescues effected from 
the ranks of the drunken army. The following will not 
only be examples of this, but will tend to illustrate the 
strength and madness of the passion which masters the 
slave to strong drink: 

Barbara. — She had sunk about as low as any woman 
could when we found her. From the age of eighteen, 
when her parents had forced her to throw over her sailor 
sweetheart and marry a man with "good prospects," she 
had been going steadily down. 

She did not love her husband, and soon sought com- 
fort from the little public-house only a few steps from 
her own door. Quarrels in her home quickly gave place 
to fighting, angry curses, and oaths, and soon her life 
became one of the most wretched in the place. Her 
husband made no pretense of caring for her, and when 
she was ill and unable to earn money by selling fish in 
the streets, he would gooff for a few months, leaving her 
to keep the house and support herself and babies as best 
she could. Out of her twenty years of married life, ten 
were spent in these on-and-off separations. And so she 
got to live for only one thing — drink. It was life to her; 
and the mad craving grew to be irresistible. The 
woman who looked after her at the birth of her child 
refused to fetch her whisky, so when she had done all 
she could and left the mother to rest, Barbara crept out 
of bed and crawled slowly down the stairs over the way 
to the tap-room, where she sat drinking with the baby, 
not yet an hour old, in her arms. So things went on, 
until her life got so unbearable that she determined to 
have done with it. Taking her two eldest children with 
her, she went down to the bay, and deliberately threw 
them both into the water, jumping in herself after them. 
"Oh, mither, mither, dinna droon me!" wailed her little 
three-year-old Sarah, but she was determined and held 
them under the water, till, seeing a boat put out to the 



AND THE WAY OUT 227 

rescue, she knew that she was discovered. Too late to 
do it now, she thought, and, holding both children, swam 
quickly back to the shore. A made-up story about hav- 
ing fallen into the water satisfied the boatman, and 
Barbara returned home dripping and baffled. But little 
Sarah did not recover from the shock, and after a few 
weeks her short life ended, and she was laid in the 
Cemetery. 

Yet another time, goaded to desperation, she tried to 
take her life by hanging herself, but a neighbor came in 
and cut her down unconscious, but still living. She 
became a terror to all the neighborhood, and her name 
was the by-word for daring and desperate actions. But 
our Open-Air Meetings attracted her, she came to the 
Barracks, got saved, and was delivered from her love of 
drink and sin. 

From being a dread her home became a sort of house 
of refuge in the little low street where she lived; other 
wives as unhappy as herself would come in for advice 
and help. Anyone knew that Barbie was changed, and 
loved to do all she could for her neighbors. A few 
months ago she came up to the Captain's in great dis- 
tress over a woman who lived just opposite. She had 
been cruelly kicked and cursed by her husband, who had 
finally bolted the door against her, and she had turned 
to Barbie as the only hope. And of course Barbie took 
her in, with her rough-and-ready kindness got her to bed, 
kept out the other women who crowded round to sympa- 
thize and declaim against the husband's brutality, was 
both nurse and doctor for the poor woman till her child 
was born and laid in the mother's arms. And then, to 
Barbie's distress, she could do no more, for the woman, 
not daring to be absent longer, got up as best she could, 
and crawled on hands and knees down the little steep 
steps, across the street, and back to her own door. 
"But, Barbie! " exclaimed the Captain, horrified, "you 
should have nursed her, and kept her until she was 
strong enough." But Barbie answered by reminding the 
Captain of "John's" fearful temper, and how it might 
cost the woman her life to be absent from her home 
more than a couple of hours. 

The second is the case of— 



228 IN DARKEST ENGLAIs'D 

Maggie. — She had a home, but seldom was sober 
enough to reach it at nights. She would fall down on 
the door-steps until found by some passer-by or a police- 
man. 

In one of her mad freaks a boon companion happened 
to offend her. He was a little hunchback, and a fellow- 
drunkard; but without a moment's hesitation, Maggie 
seized him and pushed him head-foremost down the old- 
fashioned wide sewer of the Scotch town. Had not some- 
one seen his heels kicking out and rescued him, he 
would surely have been suffocated. 

One winter's night Maggie had been drinking heavily, 
fighting, too, as usual, and she staggered only as far, on 
her way home, as the narrow chain-pier. Here she 
stumbled and fell, and lay along on the snow, the blood 
oozing from her cuts, and her hair spread out in a tan- 
gled mass. 

At 5 in the morning, some factory girls, crossing the 
bridge to their work, came upon her, lying stiff and 
stark amidst the snow and darkness. 

To rouse her from her drunken sleep was hard, but to 
raise her from the ground was still harder. The matted 
hair and blood had frozen fast to the earth, and Maggie 
was a prisoner. After trying to free her in different 
ways, and receiving as a reward volleys of abuse and 
bad language, one of the girls ran for a kettle of boiling 
water, and by pouring it all around her, they succeeded 
by degrees in melting her on to her feet again! 

But she came to our Barracks, and got soundly con- 
verted, and the Captain was rewarded for nights and 
days of toil by seeing her a saved and sober woman. 

All went right till a friend asked her to his house, to 
drink his health and that of his newly married wife. 

"I wouldn't ask you to take anything strong, " he said. 
"Drink to me with this lemonade." 

And Maggie, nothing suspecting, drank, and as she 
drank tasted in the glass her old enemy, whisky! 

The man laughed at her dismay, but a friend rushed 
off to tell the Captain. 

"I may be in time, she has not really gone back;" 
and the Captain ran to the house, tying her bonnet- 
Strings as she ran. 



AND THE WAY OUT 229 

"It's no good — keep awa' — I don't want to see 'er, Cap- 
tain," wailed Maggie; "let me have some more — oh, I'm 
on fire inside." 

But the Captain was firm, and taking her to her home, 
she locked herself in with the woman, and sat with the 
key in her pocket, while Maggie, half mad with 
craving, paced the floor like a caged animal, threatening 
and entreating by terms. 

"Never while I live," was all the answer she could 
get; so she turned to the door, and busied herself there 
a moment or two. A clinking noise. The Captain 
started up — to see the door open and Maggie rush 
through it! Accustomed to stealing and all its "dodges, " 
she had taken the lock off the door, and was away to the 
nearest public-house. 

Down the stairs. Captain after her, into the gin pal- 
ace; but before the astonished publican could give her 
the drink she was clamoring for, the "bonnet" was by her 
side. "If you dare to serve her, I'll break the glass before 
it reaches her lips. She shall not have any! " and so 
Maggie was coaxed away, and shielded till the passion 
was over, and she was herself once more. 

But the man who gave her the whisky durst not leave 
his house for weeks. The roughs got to know of the 
trap he had laid for her, and would have lynched him 
could they have got hold of him. 

The third is the case of Rose: 

Rose was ruined, deserted, and left to the streets 
when only a girl of thirteen, by a once well-to-do man, 
who is now, we believe, closing his days in a work- 
house in the North of England. 

Fatherless, motherless, and you might almost say friend- 
less, Rose trod the broad way to destruction, with all its 
misery and shame, for twelve long years. Her wild, pas- 
sionate nature, writhing under the wrong suffered, sought 
forgetfulness in the intoxicating cup, and she soon be- 
came a notorious drunkard. Seventy-four times during 
her career she was dragged before the magistrates, and 
seventy-four times, with one exception, she was pun- 
ished, but the seventy-fourth time she was as far off ref- 
ormation as ever. The one exception happened on the 



230 IN DARKES f ENGLAND 

Queen' s Jubilee Day. On seeing her well-known face again 
before him, the magistrate inquired, "How many times 
has this woman been here before? " The Police Superintend- 
ent answered, "Fifty times." The magistrate remarked, 
in somewhat grim humor, "Then this is her Jubilee," 
and, moved by the coincidence, he let her go free. So 
Rose spent her Jubilee out of prison. 

It is a wonder that the dreadful, drunken, reckless, 
dissipated life she lived did not hurry her to an early 
grave; it did affect her reason, and for three weeks she 
was locked up in Lancaster Lunatic Asylum, having 
really gone mad through drink and sin. 

In evidence of her reckless nature, it is said that after 
her second imprisonment she vowed she would never 
again walk to the police station; consequently, when in 
her wild orgies the police found it necessary to arrest 
her, they had to get her to the police station as best they 
could, sometimes by requisitioning a wheelbarrow or a 
cart, or the use of a stretcher, and sometimes they had 
to carry her right out. On one occasion, toward the 
close of her career, when driven to the last-named method, 
four policemen were carrying her to the station, and she 
was extra violent, screaming, plunging, and biting, when, 
either by accident or design, one of the policemen let go 
of her head, and it came in contact with the curbstone, 
causing the blood to pour forth in a stream. As soon 
as they placed her in the cell the poor creature caught 
the blood in her hands, and literally washed her face 
with it. On the following morning she presented a pit- 
iable sight, and before taking her into the court the po- 
lice wanted to wash her, but she declared she would 
draw any man's blood who attempted to put a finger 
upon her; they had spilt her blood, and she would carry 
it into the court as a witness against them: On coming 
out of jail for the last time, she met with a few Salva- 
tionists beating the drum and singing "Oh! the Lamb, 
the bleeding Lamb; He was found worthy." Rose, 
struck with the song, and impressed with the very faces 
of the people, followed them, saying to herself, "I never 
before heard anything like that, or seen such happy look- 
ing people. " She came into the Barracks; her heart was 
broken; she found her way to the Penitent Form^ an4 



AND THE WAY OUT 231 

Christ, with His own precious blood, washed her sins 
away. She arose from her knees and said to the Cap- 
tain, "It is all right now." 

Three months after her conversion a great meeting 
was held in the largest hall in the town, where she was 
known to almost every inhabitant. There were about 
three thousand people present. Rose was called upon to 
give her testimony to the power of God to save. A 
more enthusiastic wave of sympathy never greeted any 
speaker than that which met her from that crowd, every 
one of whom was familiar with her past history. After 
a few broken words, in which she spoke of the wonderful 
change that had taken place, a cousin, who, like herself, 
had lived a notoriously evil life, came to the Cross. 

Rose is now War Cry sergeant. She goes into the 
brothels and gin palaces and other haunts of vice, from 
which she was rescued, and sells more papers than any 
other Soldier. 

The Superintendent of Police, soon after her conver- 
sion, told the Captain of the Corps that in rescuing Rose 
a more wonderful v/ork had been done than he had seen 
in all the years gone by. 

S. was a native of Lancashire, the son of poor but 
pious parents. He was saved when "sixteen years of 
age. He was first an Evangelist, then a City Mission- 
ary for five or six years, and afterwards a Baptist Min- 
ister. He then fell under the influence of drink, re- 
signed, and became a commercial traveler, but lost his 
berth through drink. He was then an insurance agent, 
and rose to be superintendent, but was again dismissed 
through drink. During his drunken career he had delir- 
ium tremens four times, attempted suicide three times, 
sold up six homes, was in the workhouse with his wife 
and family three times. His last contrivance forgetting 
drink was to preach mock sermons and offer mock 
prayers in the tap-rooms. After one of these blasphe- 
mous performances in a public-house, on the words, "Are 
you Saved?" he was challenged to go to the Salvation 
Barracks. He went, and the Captain, who knew him 
well, at once made for him, to plead for his soul, but 
S. knocked him down, and rushed back to the public- 
house for more drink. He was^ however^ so nioved by 



233 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

what he had heard that he was unable to raise the liq- 
uor to his mouth, although he made three attempts. He 
again returned to the meeting, and again quitted it for the 
public-house. He could not rest, and for the third time 
he returned to the Barracks. As he entered the last time 
the Soldiers were singing: 

Depth of mercy, can there be 
Mercy still reserved for me? 
Can my God his wrath forbear? 
Me, the Chief of Sinners, spare? 

This song impressed him still further; he wept, and 
remained in the Barracks under deep conviction until 
midnight. He was drunk all the next day, vainly try- 
ing to drown his convictions. The Captain visited him 
at night, but was quickly thrust out of the house. He 
was there again next morning, and prayed and talked 
with S. for nearly two hours. Poor S. was in despair. 
He persisted that there was no mercy for him. After a 
long struggle, however, hope sprung up, he fell upon his 
knees, confessed his sins, and obtained forgiveness. 

When this happened, his furniture consisted of a 
soap-box for a table, and starch boxes for chairs. His 
wife, himself, and three children had not slept in a bed 
for three years. He has now a happy family, a comfort- 
able home, and has been the means of leading num- 
bers of other slaves of sin to the Saviour, and to a truly 
happy life. 

Similar cases, describing the deliverance of drunkards 
from the bondage of strong drink, could be produced in- 
definitely. There are Officers marching in our ranks to- 
day, who were once gripped by this fiendish fascination, 
who have had their fetters broken, and are now free men 
in the Army. Still the mighty torrent of Alcohol, fed 
by ten thousand manufactories, sweeps on, bearing with 
it, I have no hesitation in saying, the foulest, bloodiest 
tide that ever flowed from earth to eternity. The Church 
of the living God ought not — and to say nothing about 
religion, the people who have any humanity ought not — to 
rest without doing something desperate to rescue this 



AND THE WAY OUT 233 

quarter of a million who are in the eddying maelstrom. 
We purpose, therefore, the taking away of the people 
from the temptation which they cannot resist. We 
would to God that the temptation could be taken away 
from them, that every house licensed to send forth the 
black streams of bitter death were closed, and closed for- 
ever. But this will not be, we fear, for the present at 
least. 

While in one case drunkenness may be resolved into a 
habit, in another it must be accounted a disease. What 
is wanted in the one case, therefore, is some m.ethod of 
removing the man out of the sphere of the temptation, 
and in the other for treating the passion as a disease, as 
we should any other physical affection, bringing to bear 
upon it every agency, hygienic and otherwise, calculated 
to effect a cure. 

The Dalrymple Homes, in which, on the order of a 
magistrate and by their own consent. Inebriates can be 
confined for a time, have been a partial success in deal- 
ing with this class in both these respects; but they are 
admittedly too expensive to be of any service to the 
poor. It could never be hoped that working-people of 
themselves, or with the assistance of their friends, would 
be able to pay two pounds a week for the privilege of being 
removed away from the licensed temptations to drink 
which surround them at every step. Moreover, could 
they obtain admission, they would feel themselves any- 
thing but at ease amongst the class who avail themselves 
of these institutions. We propose to establish Homes 
which will contemplate the deliverance, not of ones and 
twos, but of multitudes, and which will be accessible to 
the poor, or to persons of any class choosing to use them. 
This is our national vice, and it demands nothing short 
of a national remedy — any way, one of proportions large 
enough to be counted national. 



334 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

1. To begin with, there will be City Homes, into 
which a man can be taken, watched over, kept out of the 
way of temptation, and if possible delivered from the 
power of this dreadful habit. 

In some cases persons would be taken in who are en- 
gaged in business in the City in the day, being accom- 
panied by an attendant to and from the Home. In this 
case, of course, adequate remuneration for this extra 
care would be required. 

2. Country Homes, which we shall conduct on the 
Dalrymple principle; that is, taking persons for com- 
pulsory confinement, they binding themselves by a bond 
confirmed by a magistrate that they would remain for a 
certain period. 

The general regulations for both establishments would 
be something as follows: 

(i.) There would be only one class in each establish- 
ment. If it was found that the rich and the poor did not 
work comfortably together, separate institutions must be 
provided. 

(2.) All would alike have to engage in some remu- 
nerative form of employment. Outdoor work would be 
preferred, but indoor employment would be arranged for 
those for whom it was most suitable, and in such weather 
and at such times of the year when garden work was im- 
practicable. 

(3.) A charge of los. per week would be made. This 
could be remitted when there was no ability to pay it. 

The usefulness of such Homes is too evident to need 
any discussion. There is one class of unfortunate creat- 
ures who must be objects of pity to all who have any 
knowledge of their existence, and that is, those men and 
women who are being continually dragged before the 
magistrates, of whom we are constantly reading in the 
police reports, whose lives are spent in and out of prison, 
at an enormous cost to the country, and without any 
benefit to themselves. 



AND THE WAY OUT 235 

We should then be able to deal with this class. It 
would be possible for a magistrate, instead of sentencing 
the poor wrecks of humanity to the sixty-fourth and one 
hundred and twentieth term of imprisonment, to send 
them to this Institution, by simply remanding them to 
come up for sentence when called for. How much 
cheaper such an arrangement would be for the country I 

Section V.— A NEW WAY OF ESCAPE FOR LOST 

WOMEN 

THE RESCUE HOMES 

Perhaps there is no evil more destructive of the best 
interests of Society, or confessedly more difficult to deal 
with remedially, than that which is known as the Social 
Evil. We have already seen something of the extent to 
which this terrible scourge has grown, and the alarming 
manner in which it affects our modern civilization. 

We have already made an attempt at grappling with 
this evil, having about thirteen Homes in Great Britain, 
accommodating 307 girls under the charge of 132 Officers, 
together with seventeen Homes abroad, open for the 
same purpose. The whole, although a small affair com- 
pared with the vastness of the necessity, nevertheless 
constitutes perhaps the largest and most efficient effort 
of its character in the world. 

It is difficult to estimate the results that have been 
already realized. By our varied operations, apart from 
these Homes, probably hundreds, if not thousands, have 
been delivered from lives of shame and misery. We 
have no exact return of the number who have gone 
through the Homes abroad, but in connection with the 
work in this country, about 3,000 have been rescued, 
and are living lives of virtue. 

This success has not only been gratifying on account 



236 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

of the blessing it has brought these young women, the 
gladness it has introduced to the homes to which they 
have been restored, and the benefit it has bestowed upon 
Society, but because it has assured us that much greater 
results of the same character may be realized by opera- 
tions conducted on a larger scale, and under more favor- 
able circumstances. 

With this view we propose to remodel and greatly in- 
crease the number of our Homes, both in London and 
the provinces, establishing one in every great centre of 
this infamous traffic, and to make them very largely 
Receiving Houses, where the girls will be initiated into 
the system of reformation, tested as to the reality of their 
desires for deliverance, and started forward on the 
highway of truth, virtue, and religion. 

From these Homes large numbers, as at present, would 
be restored to their friends and relatives, while some 
would be detained in training for domestic service, and 
others passed on to the Farm Colony. 

On the Farm they would be engaged in various occu- 
pations. In the Factory, at Bookbinding and Weaving; 
in the Garden and Glasshouses, amongst fruit and flow- 
ers; in the Dairy, making butter; in all cases going 
through a course of Housework which will fit them for 
domestic service. 

At every stage the same process of moral and religious 
training, on which we specially rely, will be carried for- 
ward. 

There would probably be a considerable amount of 
inter-marriage amongst the Colonists, and in this way a 
number of these girls would be absorbed into Society. 

A large number would be sent abroad as domestic serv- 
ants. In Canada, the girls are taken out of the Rescue 
Homes as servants, with no other reference than is 
gained by a few weeks' residence there, and are paid as 



AND THE WAY OUT 2^7 

much as ^3 a month wages. The scarcity of domestic 
servants in the Australian Colonies, Western States of 
America, Africa, and elsewhere is well known. And we 
have no doubt that on all hands our girls with twelve 
months' character will be welcomed, the question of 
outfit and passage money being easily arranged for by the 
persons requiring their services advancing the amount, 
with an understanding that it is to be deducted out of 
their first earnings. 

Then we have the Over-Sea Colony, which will re- 
quire the service- of a large number. Very few families 
will go out who^will not be very glad to take a young 
woman with them, not as a menial servant, but as a 
companion and friend. 

By this method we should be able to carry out Rescue 
work on a much larger scale. At present two difficul- 
ties very largely block our way. One is the costliness of 
the work. The expense of rescuing a girl on the present 
plan cannot be much less than ;^7; that is, if we include 
the cost of those with whom we fail, and on whom the 
money is largely thrown away. Certainly ;^7 is not a 
very large sum for the measure of benefit bestowed upon 
the girl by bringing her off the streets, and that which 
is bestowed on Society by removing her from her evil 
course; still, when the work runs into thousands of 
individuals, the amount required becomes considerable. 
On the plan proposed we calculate that from the date 
of their reaching the Farm Colony they will earn nearly 
all that is required for their support. 

The next difficulty which hinders our expansion in this 
department is the want of suitable and permanent situa- 
tions. Although we have been marvelously successful so 
far, having at this hour probably 1,200 girls in domes- 
tic service alone, still the difficulty in this respect is 
great. Families are naturally shy at receiving these 



338 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

poor unfortunates when they can secure the help they 
need combined with unblemished character; and we can- 
not blame them. 

Then, again, it can easily be understood that the 
monotony of domestic service in this country is not alto- 
gether congenial to the tastes of many of these girls, 
who have been accustomed to a life of excitement and 
freedom. This can be easily understood. To be shut 
up seven days a week, with little or no intercourse, 
either with friends or with the outside world, beyond 
that which comes of the weekly Church service or "night 
out," with nowhere to go, as many of th«m are tied off 
from the Salvation Army Meetings, becomes very monot- 
onous, and in hours of depression it is not to be won- 
dered at if a few break down in their resolutions, and 
fall back into their old ways. 

On the plan we propose there is something to cheer 
these girls forward. Life on the Farm will be attract- 
ive. From there they can go to a new country and be- 
gin the world afresh, with the possibility of being mar- 
ried and having a little home of their own some day. 
With such prospects, we think, they will be much more 
likely to fight their way through seasons of darkness and 
temptation than as at present. 

This plan will also make the task of rescuing the girls 
much more agreeable to the Officers engaged in it. They 
will have this future to dwell upon as an encouragement 
to persevere with the girls, and will be spared one ele- 
ment at least in the regret they experience, when a girl 
falls back into old habits — namely, that she earned the 
principal part of the money that has been expended upon 
her. 

That girls can be rescued and blessedly saved even 
now, despite all their surroundings, we have many re- 
markable proofs. Of these take one or two as examples: 



And the way out 28u 

J. W. was brought by our Officers from a neighbor- 
hood which has, by reason of the atrocities perpetrated 
in it, obtained an unenviable renown, even among similar 
districts of equally bad character. 

She was only nineteen; a country girl. She had be- 
gun the struggle for life early as a worker in a large 
laundry, and at thirteen years of age was led away by 
an inhuman brute. The first false step taken, her course 
on the downward road was rapid, and growing restless 
and anxious for more scope than that afforded, in a country 
town, she came up to London. 

For some time she lived the life of extravagance and 
show known to many of this class for a short time — 
having plenty of money, fine clothes, and luxurious sur- 
roundings — until the terrible disease seized her poor 
body, and she soon found herself deserted, homeless and 
friendless, an outcast of Society. 

When we found her she was hard and impenitent, diffi- 
cult to reach even with the hand of love; but love won, and 
since that time she has been in two or three situations, 
a consistent Soldier of an Army corps, and a champion 
War Cry seller. 

A TICKET-OF-LEAVE WOMAN 

A. B. was the child of respectable working-people — Ro- 
man Catholics — but was early left an orphan. She fell 
in with bad companions, and became addicted to drink, 
going from bad to worse until drunkenness, robbery, and 
harlotry brought her to the lowest depths. She passed 
seven years in prison, and after the last offense was dis- 
charged with seven years' police supervision. Failing to 
report herself, she was brought before the bench. 

The magistrate inquired whether she had ever had a 
chance in a Home of any kind. "She is too old, no one 
will take her," was the reply, but a Detective present, 
knowing a little about the Salvation Army, stepped for- 
ward and explained to the magistrate that he did not 
think the Salvation Army refused any who applied. 
She was formally handed over to us in a deplorable con- 
dition, her clothing the scantiest and dirtiest. For over 
three years she has given evidence of a genuine reforma- 
tion, during which time she has industriously earned 
her own living. 



240 IK DARKEST ENGLAND 

A WILD WOMAN 

In visiting a slum in a town in the North of England, 
our Officers entered a hole, unfit to be called a human 
habitation — more like the den of some wild animal — 
almost the only furniture of which was a filthy iron bed- 
stead, a wooden box to serve for table and chair, while 
an old tin did duty as a dust-bin. 

The inhabitant of this wretched den was a poor 
woman, who fled into the darkest corner of the place as 
our Officer entered. This poor wretch was the victim of 
a brutal man, who never allowed her to venture outside 
the door, keeping her alive by the scantiest allowance of 
food. Her only clothing consisted of a sack tied round her 
body. Her feet were bare, her hair matted and foul, 
presenting on the whole such an object as one could 
scarcely imagine living in a civilized country. 

She had left a respectable home, forsaken her husband 
and family, and sunk so low that the man who then 
claimed her boasted to the Officer that he had bettered 
her condition by taking her off the streets. 

We took the poor creature away, washed and clothed 
her; and, changed in heart and life, she is one more 
added to the number of those who rise up to bless the 
Salvation Army workers. 

Section VI.— A PREVENTIVE HOME FOR UN- 
FALLEN GIRLS WHEN IN DANGER 

There is a story told likely enough to be true about a 
young girl who applied one evening for admission to 
some home established for the purpose of rescuing fallen 
women. The matron naturally inquired whether she had 
forfeited her virtue; the girl replied in the negative. 
She had been kept from that infamy, but she was poor 
and friendless, and wanted somewhere to lay her head 
until she could secure work and obtain a home. The 
matron must have pitied her, but she could not help her, 
as she did not belong to the class for whose benefit the 
Institution was intended. The girl pleaded, but the 



AND THE WAY OUr 241 

matron could not alter the rule, and dare not break it, 
they were so pressed to find room for their own poor un- 
fortunates, and she could not receive her. The poor girl 
left the door reluctantly, but returned in a very short 
time, and said, "I am fallen now, will you take me in?" 

I am somewhat slow to credit this incident; anyway it 
is true in spirit, and illustrates the fact that while 
there are homes to which any poor, ruined, degraded 
harlot can run for shelter, there is only here and there 
a corner to which a poor, friendless, moneyless, home- 
less, but unfallen girl can fly for shelter from the storm 
which bids fair to sweep her away, whether she will or 
no, into the deadly vortex of ruin which gapes beneath 
her. 

In London and all our large towns there must be a 
considerable number of poor girls who, from various 
causes, are suddenly plunged into this forlorn condi- 
tion; a quarrel with the mistress and sudden discharge, 
a long bout of disease and dismissal penniless from the 
hospital, a robbery of a purse, having to wait for a 
situation until the last penny is spent, and many other 
causes will leave a girl an almost hopeless prey to the 
lynx-eyed villains who are ever watching to take advan- 
tage of innocence when in danger. Then, again, what 
a number there must be in a great city like London 
who are ever faced with the alternative of being turned 
out of doors if they refuse to submit themselves to the 
infamous overtures of those around them. I understand 
that the Society for the Protection of Children prose- 
cuted last year a fabulous number of fathers for unnatural 
sins with their children. If so many were brought to 
justice, how many were there of whom the world never 
heard in any shape or form? We have only to imagine 
how many a poor girl is faced with the terrible alterna- 
tive of being driven literally into the streets by employ- 
16 



242 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

ers or relatives or others in whose power she is unfortu- 
nately placed. 

Now, we want a real home for such — a house to which 
any girl can fly at any hour of the day or night, and be 
taken in, cared for, shielded from the enemy, and helped 
into circumstances of safety. 

The Refuge we propose will be very much on the same 
principle as the Homes for the Destitute already 
described. We should accept any girls, say from four- 
teen years of age, who were without visible means of 
support, but who were willing to work, and to conform 
to discipline. There would be various forms of labor 
provided, such as laundry work, sewing, knitting by ma- 
chines, etc., etc. Every beneficial influence within our pow- 
er would be brought to bear on the rectification and forma- 
tion of character. Continued efforts would be made to 
secure situations according to the adaptation of the girls, 
to restore wanderers to their homes, and otherwise pro- 
vide for all. From this, as with the other Homes, 
there will be a way made to the Farm and to the 
Colony over the sea. The institutions would be multi- 
plied as we had means and found them to be necessary, 
and made self-supporting as far as possible. 

Section VH.— INQUIRY OFFICE FOR LOST 
PEOPLE 

Perhaps nothing more vividly suggests the varied 
forms of broken-hearted misery in the great City than 
the statement that 18,000 people are lost in it every 
year, of whom 9,000 are never heard of anymore, anyway 
in this world. What is true about London is, we 
suppose, true in about the same proportion of the 
rest of the country. Husbands, sons, daughters, and 
mothers are continually disappearing, and leaving no 
trace behind. 



AND THE WAY OUT 243 

In such cases, where the relations are of some impor- 
tance in the world, they may interest the police authori- 
ties sufficiently to make some inquiries in this country, 
which, however, are not often successful; or where they 
can afford to spend large sums of money, they can fall 
back upon the private detective, who will continue these 
inquiries, not only at home, but abroad. 

But where the relations of the missing individual are 
in humble circumstances, they are absolutely powerless, 
in nine cases out of ten, to effectually prosecute any 
search at all that is likely to be successful. 

Take, for instance, a cottager in a village, whose 
daughter leaves for service in a big town or city. 
Shortly afterwards a letter arrives informing her parents 
of the satisfactory character of her place. The mistress 
is kind, the work easy, and she likes her fellow-servants. 
She is going to chapel or church, and the family are 
pleased. Letters continue to arrive of the same purport, 
but at length they suddenly cease. Full of concern, 
the mother writes to know the reason, but no answer 
comes back, and after a time the letters are returned 
with "Gone, no address," written on the envelope. The 
mother writes to the mistress, or the father journeys to 
the city, but no further information can be obtained 
beyond the fact that "the girl has conducted herself some- 
what mysteriously of late; had ceased to be as careful at 
her work; had been noticed to be keeping company with 
some young man; had given notice, and disappeared alto- 
gether. " 

Now, what can these poor people do? They apply to 
the police, but they can do nothing. Perhaps they ask 
the clergyman of the parish, who is equally helpless, and 
there is nothing for them but for the father to hang his 
head and the mother to cry herself to sleep — to long, 



244 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

and wait, and pray for information that perhaps never 
comes, and to fear the worst. 

Now, our Inquiry Department supplies a remedy for 
this state of things. In such a case application would 
simply have to be made to the nearest Salvation Army 
Officer — probably in her own village, anyway in the 
nearest town — who would instruct the parents to write to 
the Chief OfHce in London, sending portraits and all 
particulars. Inquiries would at once be set on foot, which 
would very possibly end in the restoration of the girl. 

The achievements of this Department, which has only 
been in operation for a short time, and that on a limited 
scale as a branch of Rescue Work, have been marvelous. 
No more romantic stories can be found in the pages of 
our most imaginative writers than those it records. We 
give three or four illustrative cases of recent date: 

A LOST HUSBAND 

Inquiry. — Mrs. S., of New Town, Leeds, wrote to say 
that Robert R. left England in July, 1889, for Canada, to 
improve his position. He left a wife and four little 
children behind, and on leaving said that if he were suc- 
cessful out there he should send for them, but if not he 
should return. 

As he was unsuccessful, he left Montreal in the Domin- 
ion Liner "Oregon," on October 30th, but except receiv- 
ing a card from him ere he started, the wife and friends 
had heard no more of him from that day till the date 
they wrote us. 

They had written to the "Dominion" Company, who 
replied that "he landed at Liverpool all right;" so, 
thinking he had disappeared upon his arrival, they put 
the matter in the hands of the Liverpool Police, who, 
after having the case in hand for several weeks, made the 
usual report — "Cannot be traced." 

Result. — We at once commenced looking for some pas- 
senger who had come over by the same steamer, and after 



AND THE WAY OUT 245 

the lapse of a little time we succeeded in getting hold 
of one. 

In our first interview with him we learned that Robert 
R. did not land at Liverpool, but when suffering from 
depression, threw himself overboard three days after leav- 
ing America, and was drowned. We further elicited that 
upon his death the sailors rifled his clothes and boxes, 
and partitioned them. 

We wrote the Company reporting this, and they prom- 
ised to make inquiries and amends; but, as too often hap- 
pens, upon making report of the same to the family, they 
took the matter into their own hands, dealt with the 
Company direct, and in all probability thereby lost a 
good sum in compensation which we should probably 
have obtained for them. 

A LOST WIFE 

Inquiry. — F. J. L. asked us to seek for his wife, who left 
him on November 4th, 1888. He feared she had gone 
to live an immoral life; gave us two addresses at which 
she might possibly be heard of, and a description. 
They had three children. 

Result. — Inquiries at the addresses given elicited no 
information, but from observation in the neighborhood 
the woman's whereabouts was discovered. 

After some difficulty our OfBcer obtained an interview 
with the woman, who was greatly astonished at our hav- 
ing discovered her. She was dealt with faithfully and 
firmly; the plain truth of God set before her, and was 
covered with shame and remorse, and promised to return. 

We communicated with Mr. L. A few days after he 
wrote that he had been telegraphed for, had forgiven his 
wife, and that they were reunited. 

Soon afterwards she wrote expressing her deep grati- 
tude to Mrs. Bramwell Booth for the trouble taken in 
her case. 

A LOST CHILD 

Inquiry. — Alice P. was stolen away from home by 
Gypsies ten years ago, and now longs to find her parents 



246 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Id be restored to them. She believes her home to be in 
Yorkshire. 

The Police had this case in hand for some time, but 
failed entirely. 

Result. — With these particulars we advertised in the 
"War Cry." Captain Green, seeing the advertisement, 
wrote, April 3d, from 3, C. S., M. H., that her Lieuten- 
ant knew a family of the name advertised for, living at 
Gomersal, Leeds. 

We, on the 4th, wrote to this address for confirmation. 

April 6th, we heard from Mr. P., that this lass is 
his child, and he writes full of gratitude and joy, say- 
ing he will send money for her to go home. We, mean- 
while, get from the Police, who had long sought this 
girl, a full description and photo, which we sent to Cap- 
tain Cutmore, and on April 9th she wrote us to the effect 
that the girl exactly answered the description. We got 
from the parents 15s for the fare, and Alice was once more 
restored to her parents. 

Praise God. 

A LOST DAUGHTER 

Inquiry. — E. W. ; age 17. Application from this girl's 
mother and brother, who had lost all trace of her since 
July, 1885, when she left for Canada. Letters had been 
once or twice received, dated from Montreal, but they 
stopped. 

A photo, full description, and handwriting were sup- 
plied. 

Result. — We discovered that some kind Church people 
here had helped E. W. to emigrate, but they had no in- 
formation as to her movements after landing. 

Full particulars, with photo, were sent to our Officers 
in Canada. The girl was not found in Montreal. The 
information was then sent to Officers in other towns in 
that part of the Colony. 

The inquiry was continued through some months; and, 
finally, through our Major of Division, the girl was re- 
ported to us as having been recognized in one of our 
Barracks and identified. When suddenly called by her 
own name, she nearly fainted with agitation. 



AND THE WAY OUT 247 

She was in a condition of terrible poverty and shame, 
but at once consented, on hearing of her mother's inquir- 
ies, to go into one of our Canadian Resdue Homes. She 
is now doing well. 

Her mother's joy may be imagined. 

A LOST SERVANT 

Inquiry. — Mrs. M., Clevedon, one of Harriett P.'s old 
mistresses, wrote us, in deep concern, about this girl. 
She said she was a good servant, but was ruined by the 
young man who courted her, and had since had three chil- 
dren. Occasionally she would have a few bright and 
happy weeks, but would again lapse into the "vile path." 

Mrs. M. tells us that Harriett had good parents, who 
are dead, but she still has a respectable brother in Hamp- 
shire. Th^ last she heard of her was that some weeks ago 
she was staying at a Girl's Shelter at Bristol, but had 
since left, and nothing more had been heard of her. 

The inquirer requested us to find her, and in much 
faith added: "I believe you are the only people who, if 
successful in tracing her, can rescue and do her a per- 
manent good." 

Result. —We at once set inquiries on foot, and in the 
space of a few days found that she had started from 
Bristol on the road for Bath. Following her up, we 
found that at a little place called Bridlington, on the 
way to Bath, she had met a man, of whom she inquired 
her way. He hearing a bit of her story, after taking her 
to a public house, prevailed upon her to go home and live 
with him, as he had lost his wife. 

It was at this stage that we came upon the scene, and 
having dealt with them both upon the matter, got her to 
consent to come away if the man would not marry her, 
giving him two days to make up his mind. 

The two days' respite having expired, and he being 
unwilling to undertake matrimony, we brought her away, 
and sent her to one of our Homes, where she is enjoy- 
ing peace and penitence. 

When we informed the mistress and brother of the suc- 
cess, they were greatly rejoiced and overwhelmed us with 
thanks. 



248 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 



A LOST HUSBAND 



In a seaside home last Christmas there was a sorrow- 
ing wife, who mourned over the basest desertion of her 
husband. Wandering from place to place, drinking, he 
had left her to struggle alone with four little ones de- 
pendent upon her exertions. 

Knowing her distress, the Captain of the Corps wrote 
begging us to advertise for the man in the Cry. We did 
this, but for some time heard nothing of the result. 

Several weeks later a Salvationist entered a beer-house, 
where a group of men were drinking, and began to dis- 
tribute War Crys amongst them, speaking here and there 
upon the eternity which faced everyone. 

At the counter stood a man with a pint pot in hand, 
who took one of the papers passed to him, and glancing 
carelessly down its columns caught sight of his own 
name, and was so startled that the pot fell from his 
grasp to the floor. "Come home," the paragraph ran, 
"and all will be forgiven." 

His sin faced him; the thought of a broken-hearted 
wife and starving children conquered him completely, and 
there and then he left the public-house, and started to 
walk home — a distance of many miles — arriving there 
about midnight the same night, after an absence of 
eleven months. 

The letter from his wife telling the good news of his 
return, spoke also of his determination byGod^s help to 
be a different man, and they are both attendants at the 
Salvation Army Barracks. 

A SEDUCER COMPELLED TO PAY 

Amongst the letters that came to the Inquiry Office 
one morning was one from a girl who asked us to help her 
to trace the father of her child, who had for some time 
ceased to pay anything towards its support. The case 
had been brought into the Police Court, and judgment 
given in her favor, but the guilty one had hidden, and 
his father refused to reveal his whereabouts. 

We called upon the elder man and laid the matter be- 
fore him, but failed to prevail upon him either to pay 
bis son's liabilities or to put us into communication 



AND THE WAY OUT 249 

with him. The answers to an advertisement in the War 
Ci-y, however, had brought the required information as 
to his son's whereabouts, and the same morning that our 
Inquiry Officer communicated with the police, and served 
a summons for the overdue monej', the young man had 
also received a letter from his father advising him to 
leave the country at once. He had given notice to his 
employers; and the ^i6 salary he received, with some 
help his father had sent him toward the journey, he was 
compelled to hand over to the mother of his child. 

FOUND IN THE BUSH 

A year or two ago a respectable-looking Dutch girl 
might have been seen making her way quickly and stealth- 
ily across a stretch of long rank grass towards the 
shelter of some woods on the banks of a distant river. 
Behind her lay the South African town from which she 
had come, betrayed, disgraced, ejected from her home 
with words of bitter scorn, having no longer a friend in 
the wide world who would hold out to her a hand of 
help. What could there be better for her than to plunge 
into that river yonder, and end this life — no matter 
what should come after the plunge? But Greetah feared 
the "future," and turned aside to spend the night in 
darkness, wretched and alone. 



Seven years had passed. An English traveler making 
his way through Southern Africa halted for the Sabbath 
at a little village on his route. A ramble through the 
woods brought him unexpectedly in front of a kraal, at 
the door of which squatted an old Hottentot, with a fair 
white-faced child playing on the ground near by. Glad 
to accept the proffered shelter of the hut from the burn- 
ing sun, the traveler entered, and was greatly aston- 
ished to find within, a young white girl, evidentl}' the 
mother of the frolicsome child. Full of pity for the 
strange pair, and especially for the girl, who wore an 
air of refinement little to be expected in this out-of-the- 
world spot, he sat down on the earthen floor, and told 
them of the wonderful Salvation of God. This was 
Greetah, and the Englishman would have given a great 



250 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

deal if he could have rescued her from this miserable 
lot. But this was impossible, and with reluctance he 
bid her farwell. 



It was an English home. By a glowing fire one night 
a man sat alone, and in his imaginings there came up 
the vision of the girl he had met in the Hottentot's 
kraal, and wondering whether any way of rescue was 
possible. Then he remembered reading, since his re- 
turn, the following paragraph in the War Cry: 

"to the distressed: 

"The Salvation Army invite parents, relations, and 
friends in any part of the world interested in an}; wom- 
an or girl who is known, or feared to be, living in im- 
morality, or is in danger of coming under the control 
of immoral persons, to write, stating full particulars, 
with names, dates, and address of all concerned, and, if 
possible, a photograph of the person in whom the inter- 
est is taken. 

"All letters, whether from these persons or from such 
women or girls themselves, will be regarded as strictly confi- 
dential. They may be written in any language, and 
should be addressed to Mrs. Bramwell Booth, loi, 
Queen Victoria Street, London, E. C. " 

"It will do no harm to try, anyhow," exclaimed he; 
"the thing haunts me as it is;" and without further delay 
he penned an account of his African adventure, as full 
as possible. The next African mail carried instructions 
to the Officer in Command of our South African work. 



Shortly after, one of our Salvation Riders was explor- 
ing the bush, and after some difficulty the kraal was dis- 
covered — the girl was rescued and raved. The Hotten- 
tot was converted afterwards, and both are now 
Salvation Soldiers. 

Apart from the independent agencies employed to 
prosecute this class of inquiries, which it is proposed 
to very largely increase, the Army possesses in itsel 



And the way out 25i 

peculiar advantages for this kind of investigation. The 
mode of operation is as fellows: 

There is a Head Centre, under the direction of a capa- 
ble Officer and assistants, to which particulars of lost 
husbands, sons, daughters, and wives, as the case may 
be, are forwarded. These are advertised, except when 
deemed inadvisable, in the English "War Cry," with 
its 300,000 circulation, and from it copied into the 
twenty-three other "War Crys" published in different 
parts of the world. Specially prepared information in 
each case is sent to the local Officers of the Army when 
that is thought wise, or Special Inquiry Officers trained 
to their work are immediately set to work to follow up 
any clue which has been given by inquiring relations or 
friends. 

Every one of its 10,000 Officers, nay, almost every 
Soldier in its ranks, scattered, as they are, through 
every quarter of the globe, may be regarded as an 
Agent. 

A small charge for inquiries is made, and, where per- 
sons are able, all the costs of the investigation will be 
defrayed by them. 

Section VIIL— REFUGES FOR THE CHILDREN OF 
THE STREETS 

For the waifs and strays of the streets of London 
much commiseration is expressed, and far more pity is 
deserved that is bestowed. We have no direct purpose 
of entering on a crusade on their behalf, apart from our 
attempt at changing the hearts and lives and improving 
the circumstances of their parents. 

Our main hope for these wild, youthful outcasts lies 
in this direction. If we can reach and benefit their 
guardians, morally and materially, we shall take the 
most effectual road to benefit the children themselves. 



252 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Still, a number oi tnem will unavoidably be forced 
upon us; and we shall be quite prepared to accept the 
responsibility of dealing with them, calculating that 
our organization will enable us to do so, not only with 
facility and efficiency, but with trifling cost to the 
public. 

To begin with. Children's Creches, or Children's Day 
Homes, would be established in the centres of every 
poor population, where for a small charge babies and 
young children can be taken care of in the day while 
the mothers are at work, instead of being left to the 
dangers of the thoroughfares or the almost greater peril 
of being burnt to death in their own miserable homes. 

By this plan we shall not only be able to benefit the 
poor children, if in no other direction than that of soap 
and water and a little wholesome food, but exercise some 
humanizing influence upon the mothers themselves. 

On the Farm Colony, we should be able to deal with 
the infants from the Unions and other quarters. Our 
Cottage mothers, with two or three children of their 
own, would readily take in an extra one on the usual 
terms of boarding out children, and nothing would be 
more simple or easy for us than to set apart some trust- 
worthy experienced dame to make a constant inspection 
as to whether the children placed out were enjoying the 
necessary conditions of health and general well-being. 
Here would be a Baby Farm carried on with the most 
favorable surroundings. 

Section IX.— INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 

I also propose, at the earliest opportunity, to give the 
subject of the industrial training of boys a fair trial; 
and, if successful^ follow it on with a similar one for 
girls. I am nearly satisfied in my own mind that the 
children of the streets taken, say at eight years of age, 



AND THE WAY OUT 258 

and kept till, say twenty-one, would, by judicious man- 
agement and the utilization of their strength and capac- 
ity, amply supply all their own wants, and would, I think, 
be likely to turn out thoroughly good and capable 
members of the community. 

Apart from the mere benevolent aspect of the ques- 
tion, the present system of teaching is, to my mind, 
unnatural, and shamefully wasteful of the energies of 
the children. Fully one-half the time that boys and 
girls are compelled to sit in school is spent to little or 
no purpose — nay, it is worse than wasted. The ds 

of the children are only capable of useful application 
for so many consecutive minutes, and hence the rational 
method must be to apportion the time of the children; 
say, half the morning's work to be given to their books, 
and the other half to some industrial employment; the 
garden would be most natural and healthy in fair 
weather, while the workshop should be fallen back upon 
when unfavorable. 

By this method health would be promoted, school 
would be loved, the cost of education would be cheap- 
ened, and the natural bent of the child's capacities 
would be discovered and could be cultivated. Instead of 
coming out of school, or going away from apprentice- 
ship, with the most precious part of life forever gone 
so far as learning is concerned, chained to some pursuit 
for which there is no predilection, and which premises 
nothing higher than mediocrity if not failure — the work 
for which the mind was peculiarly adapted and for 
which, therefore, it would have a natural capacit}^, 
would not only have been discovered, but the bent of the 
inclination cultivated, and the life's v/ork chosen 
accordingly. 

It is not for me to attempt any reform of our School 
system on this model. But I do think that I may be 



254 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

allowed to test the theory by its practical working in ^n 
Industrial School in connection with the Farm Colony. 
I should begin probably with children selected for their 
goodness and capacity, with a view to imparting a supe- 
rior education, thus fitting them for the position of Officers 
in all parts of the world, with the special object of rais- 
ing up a body of men thoroughly trained and educated, 
among other things, to carry out all the branches of the 
Social work that are set forth in this book, and it may 
be to instruct other nations in the same. 

Section X.— ASYLUMS FOR MORAL LUNATICS 

There will remain, after all has been said and done, 
one problem that has yet to be faced. You may min- 
imize the difficulty every way, and it is your duty to do 
so, but no amount of hopefulness can make us blink the 
fact that when all has been done and every chance has 
been offered, when you have forgiven your brother not only 
seven times, but seventy times seven, when you have 
fished him up from the mire and put him on firm ground 
only to see him relapse and again relapse until you have 
no strength left to pull him out once more, there will 
still remain a residuum of men and women who have, 
whether from heredity or custom, or hopeless demorali- 
zation, become reprobates. After a certain time, some 
men of science hold that persistence in habits tends to 
convert a man from a being with freedom of action and 
will into a mere automaton. There are some cases within 
our knowledge which seem to confirm the somewhat 
dreadful verdict by which a man appears to be a lost 
soul on this side of the grave. 

There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement 
that you can offer will tempt them to work; so eaten 
up by vice that virtue is abhorrent to them, and so in- 



AND THE WAY OUT 255 

veterately dishonest that theft is to them a master pas- 
sion. When a human being has reached that stage, there 
is only one course that can be rationally pursued. Sor- 
rowfully, but remorselessly, it must be recognized that 
he has become lunatic, morally demented, incapable 
of self-government, and that upon him, therefore, must 
be passed the sentence of permanent seclusion from a 
world in which he is not fit to be at large. The ulti- 
mate destiny of these poor wretches should be a penal 
settlement where they could be confined during Her 
Majesty's pleasure as are the criminal lunatics at 
Broadmoor. It is a crime against the race to allow 
those who are so inveterately depraved the freedom to 
wander abroad, infect their fellows, prey upon Society 
and to multiply their kind. Whatever else Society 
may do, and suffer to be done, this thing it ought not 
to allow, any more than it should allow the free per- 
ambulation of a mad dog. But before we come to this 
I would have every possible means tried to effect their 
reclamation. Let Justice punish them, and Mercy put 
her arms around them; let them be appealed to by pen- 
alty and by reason, and by every influence, human and 
Divine, that can possibly be brought to bear upon them. 
Then, if all alike failed, their ability to further curse 
their fellows and themselves should be stayed. 

They will still remain objects worthy of infieiite com- 
passion. They should lead as human a life as is pos- 
sible to those who have fallen under so terrible a judg- 
ment. They should have their own little cottages in 
their own little gardens, under the blue sky, and, if pos- 
sible, amid the green fields. I would deny them none of 
the advantages, moral, mental, and religious, which 
might minister to their diseased minds, and teiid to re- 
store them to a better state. Not until the breath leaves 
their bodies should we cease to labor and wrestle for 



250 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

their salvation. But when they have reached a cer- 
tain point, access to their fellow-men should be forbid- 
den. Between them and the wide world there should be 
reared an impassable barrier, which once passed should 
be recrossed no more forever. Such a course must be 
wiser than allowing them to go in and out among their 
fellows, carrying with them the contagion of moral lep- 
rosy, and multiplying a progeny doomed before its birth 
to inherit the vices and diseased cravings of their un- 
happy parents. 

To these proposals three leading objections will prob- 
ably be raised. 

7. It may be said that to shut out men and women 
from that liberty which is their universal birthright 
would be cruel. 

To this it might be sufficient to reply that this is 
already done; twenty years' immurement is a very com- 
mon sentence passed upon wrong-doers, and in some 
cases the law goes as far as to inflict penal servitude for 
life. But we say further that it would be far more merci- 
ful treatment than that which is dealt out to them at 
present, and it would be far more likely to secure a 
pleasant existence. Knowing their fate, they would soon 
become resigned to it. Habits of industry, sobriety, 
and kindness with them would create a restfulness of 
spirit, which goes far on in the direction of happiness, 
and if religion were added it would make that happi- 
ness complete. There might be set continually before 
them a large measure of freedom and more frequent in- 
tercourse with the world in the shape of correspondence, 
newspapers, and even occasional interviews with rela- 
tives, as rewards for well-doing. And in sickness and old 
age their -latter days might be closed in comfort. In fact, 
so far as this class of people are concerned, we can see 
that they would be far better circumstanced for happi- 



AND THE WAY OUT 257 

ness In this life and in the life to come than in their 
present liberty — if a life spent alternatively in drunken- 
ness, debauchery, and crime, on the one hand, or the 
prison on the other, can be called liberty. 

2. It may be said that the carrying out of such a sug- 
gestion would be too expensive. 

To this we reply that it would have to be very costly 
to exceed the expense in which all such characters involve 
the nation under the present regulations of vice and 
crime. But there is no need for any great expense, see- 
ing that after the first outlay the inmates of such an 
institution, if it were fixed upon the land, would readily 
earn all that would be required for their support. 

3. But it may be said that this is impossible. 

It would certainly be impossible other than as a State 
regulation. But it would surely be a very simple 
matter to enact a law which should decree that after an 
individual had suffered a certain number of convictions 
for crime, drunkenness, or vagrancy, he should forfeit 
his freedom to roam abroad and curse his fellows. When 
I include vagrancy in this list, 1 do it on the supposi- 
tion that the opportunity and ability for work are pres- 
ent. Otherwise it seems to me most heartless to punish 
a hungry man who begs for food because he can in no 
other way obtain it. But with the opportunity and 
ability for work I would count the solicitation of charity 
a crime, and punish it as such. Anyway, if a man would 
not work of his own free will, I would compel him. 



17 



CHAPTER VI. 

Assistance in General. 

There are many who are not lost, who need help. A 
little assistance given to-day will perhaps prevent the 
need of having to save them to-morrow. There are some, 
who, after they have been rescued will still need a friendly 
hand. The very service which we have rendered them at 
starting makes it obligatory upon us to finish the good 
work. Hitherto it may be objected that the Scheme has 
dealt almost exclusively with those who are more or less 
disreputable and desperate. This was inevitable. We 
obey our Divine Master and seek to save those who are 
lost. But because, as I said at the beginning, urgency is 
claimed rightly for those who have no helper, we do not, 
therefore, forget the needs and the aspirations of the 
decent working people who are poor indeed, but who keep 
their feet, who have not fallen, and who help themselves 
and help each other. They constitute the bulk of the 
nation. There is an uppercrust and a submerged tenth. 
But the hardworking poor people, who earn a pound a 
week or less, constitute in every land the majority of the 
population. We cannot forget them, for we are at home 
with them. We belong to them and many thousands of 
them belong to us. We are always studying how to help 
them, and we think this can be done in many ways, some 
of which I proceed to describe. 

268 



IN DARKEST ENGLAND 859 



Section i. — Improved Lodgings. 

The necessity for a superior class of lodgings for the 
poor men rescued at our Shelters has been forcing itself 
already upon our notice, and demanding attention. One 
of the first things that happens when a man, lifted out of 
the gutter, has obtained a situation, and is earning a 
decent livelihood, is for him to want some better accom- 
modation than that afforded at the Shelters. We have 
some hundreds on our hands now who can afford to pay 
for greater comfort and seclusion. These are continually 
saying to us something like the following ; 

'The Shelters are all very well when a man is down in 
his luck. They have been a good thing for us ; in fact, 
had it not been for them, we would still have been with- 
out a friend, sleeping on the embankment, getting our 
living dishonestly, or not getting a living at all. We have 
now got work, and want a bed to sleep on, and a room 
to ourselves, and a box, or something where we can stow 
away our bits of things. Cannot you do something for 
us?" We have replied that there were lodging-houses 
elsewhere, which, now that they were in work, they could 
afford to pay for, where they would obtain the comfort 
they desired. To this they answer, "that is all very well. 
We know there are these places, that we could go to 
them: But then," they said, "you see, here in the 
Shelters are our inmates, who think as we do. And there 
is the prayer, and the meeting, and kind influence every 
night, that helps to keep us straight. We would like a 
better place, but if you cannot find us one, we would 
rather stop in the Shelter and sleep on the floor, as we 
have been doing, than go to something more complete, 
get into bad company, and so fall back again to where we 
were before," 



260 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

But this, although natural, is not desirable ; for, if the 
process went on, in course of time the whole of the Shelter 
Depots would be taken up by persons who had risen 
above the class for whom they were originally destined. 

I propose, therefore, to draft those who get on, but 
wish to continue in connection with the Army, into a 
superior lodging-house, a sort of 

POOR man's metropole, 
managed on the same principles, but with better accom- 
modation in every way, which, I anticipate, would be 
self-supporting from the first. In these homes there would 
be separated dormitories, good sitting-rooms, cooking con- 
veniences, baths, a hall for meetings, and many other 
comforts, of which all would have the benefit at as low a 
figure above cost price as will not only pay interest on 
the original outlay, but secure us against any shrinkage 
of capital. 

Something superior in this direction will also be required 
for the women, having begun we must go on. Hitherto 
I have proposed to deal only with single men and single 
v/omen, but one of the consequences of getting hold 
of these men very soon makes itself felt. Your 
ragged, hungry, destitute Out-of-Work in almost every 
case is married. When he comes to us he comes as 
single and is dealt with as such, but after you rouse in him 
aspirations for better things he remembers the wife whom 
he has probably enough deserted, or left from sheer 
inability to provide her anything to eat. As soon as such 
a man finds himself "under good influence and fairly 
employed his first thought is to go and look after the 
"Missis." There is very little reality about any change of 
heart in a married man who does not thus turn in sympa- 
thy and longing towards his wife, and the more successful 
we are in dealing with these people the more inevitable 
it is that we shall be confronted with married couples who 



AND THE WAY OUT 26,' 

in turn demand that we should provide for them lodgings. 
This we propose to do also on a commercial footing. I 
see greater developments in this direction, one of which 
will be described in the chapter relating to Suburban 
Cottages. -The Model-lodging House for Married People 
is, however, one of those things that must be provided as 
an adjunct of the Food and Shelter Depots. 

Section 2. — Model Suburban Villages. 

As I have repeatedly stated already, but will state once 
more, for it is important enough to bear endless repetition, 
one of the first steps which must inevitably be taken in 
the reformation of this class, is to make for them decent, 
healthy, pleasant homes, or help them to make them for 
themselves, which, if possible, is far better. I do not regard 
the institution of any first, second, or third-class lodging- 
houses as affording anything but palliatives of the existing 
distress. To substitute life in a boarding-house for life 
in the streets is, no doubt, an immense advance, but it is 
by no means the ultimatum. Life in a boarding-house is 
better than the worst, but it is far from being the best 
form of human existence. Hence, the object I constantly 
keep in view is how to pilot those persons who have been 
set on their feet again by means of the Food and Shelter 
Depots, and who have obtained employment in the City, 
into the possession of homes of their own. 

Neither can I regard the one, or at most two, rooms in 
which the large majority of the inhabitants of our great 
cities are compelled to spend their days, as a solution of 
the question. The over-crowding which fills every sepa- 
rate room of a tenement with a human litter, and compels 
family life from the cradle to the grave to be lived within 
the four walls of a single apartment, must go on reproduc- 
ing in endless succession all the terrible evils which such 
a state of things must inevitably create. 



263 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Neithei* can I be satisfied with the vast, unsightly piles 
of barrack-like buildings, which are only a slight advance 
upon the Union Bastille — dubbed Model Industrial 
Dwellings — so much in fashion at present, as being a 
satisfactory settlement of the burning question of the hous- 
ing of the poor. 

As a contribution to this question, I propose the estab- 
lishment of a series of Industrial Settlements or Suburban 
Villages, lying out in the country within a reasonable 
distance of all our great cities, composed of cottages of 
suitable size and construction, and with all needful com- 
fort and accommodation for the families of working-men, 
the rent of which, together with the railway fare, and 
other economic conveniences, should be within the reach 
of a family of moderate income. 

This proposal lies slightly apart from the scope of this 
book, otherwise I should be disposed to elaborate the 
p/oject at greater length. I may say, however, that what 
I here propose has been carefully thought out, and is of 
a perfectly practical character. In the planning of it I 
have received some valuable assistance from a friend who 
has had considerable experience in the building trade, and 
Jie stakes his professional reputation on its feasibility. 
The following, however, may be taken as a rough outline ; 

The Village should not be more than twelve miles frorn 
town , should be in a dry and healthy situation, and on a 
line of railway. It is not absolutely necessary that it 
should be near a station, seeing that the company would 
for their own interests, immediately erect one. 

The Cottages should be built of the best material and 
workmanship. This would be effected most satisfactorily 
by securing a contract for the labor only, the projectors of 
the Scheme purchasing the materials and supplying them 
direct from the manufacturers to the builders. The 



AND THE WAY OUT 263 

cottages would consist of three or four rooms with a 
scullery, and out-building in the garden. The cottages 
should be built in terraces, each having a good garden 
attached. 

Arrangements should be made for the erection of from 
one thousand to two thousand houses at the onset. 

In the Village a Co-operative Goods Store should be 
established, supplying everything that was really necessary 
for the villagers at the most economic prices. 

The sale of intoxicating drink should be strictly forbidden 
on the Estate, and if possible, the landowner from whom 
the land is obtained should be tied off from allowing any 
licenses to be held on any other portion of the adjoining 
land. 

It is thought that the Railway Company, in considera- 
tion of the inconvenience and suffering they have inflicted 
on the poor, and in their own interests, might be induced 
to make the following advantageous arrangements : 

(i) The conveyance of each member actually living in 
the village to and from London at the rate of six pence 
per week. Each pass should have on it the portrait of 
the owner, and be fastened to some article of the dress, 
and be available only by Workmen's Trains running early 
and late and during certain hours of the day, when the 
trains are almost empty. 

(2) The conveyance of goods and parcels should be at 
half the ordinary rates. 

It is reasonable to suppose that landowners would 
gladly give one hundred acres of land in view of the 
immensely advanced values of the surrounding property 
which would im^mediately follow, seeing that the erection 
of one thousand or two thousand cottages would constitute 
the nucleus of a much larger Settlement. 

Lastly, the rent of a four-roomed cottage must not 
exceed 3s. per week. Add to this the sixpenny ticket to 



264 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

and from London, and you have 3s. 6d., and if the com 
pany should insist on is., it will make 4s., for which there 
would be all the advantages of a comfortable cottage — of 
which it would be possible for the tenant to become the 
owner — a good garden, pleasant surroundings, and other 
influences promotive of the health and happiness of the 
family. It is hardly necessary to remark that in connection 
with this Village there will be perfect freedom of opinion on 
all matters. A glance at the ordinary homes of the poor 
people of this great City will at once assure us that such 
a village would be a veritable Paradise to them, and that 
were four, five, or six settlements provided at once they 
would not contain a tithe of the people who would throng 
to occupy them. 

Section 3. — The Poor Man's Bank. 

If the love of money is the root of all evil, the want of 
money is the cause of an immensity of evil and trouble. 
The moment you begin practically to alleviate the miser- 
ies of the people, you discover that the eternal want of 
pence is one of their greatest difficulties. In my most 
sanguine moments I have never dreamed of smoothing 
this difficulty out of the lot of man, but it is surely no 
unattainable ideal to establish a Poor Man's Bank, which 
will extend to the lower middle class and the working 
population the advantages of the credit system, which is 
the very foundation of our boasted commerce. 

It might be better that there should be no such thing 
as credit, that no one should lend money, and that every- 
one should be compelled to rely solely upon whatever 
ready money he may possess from day to day. But if so, 
let us apply the principle all round ; do not let us glory 
in our world-wide commerce and boast ourselves in our 
riches, obtained, in so many cases, by the ignoring of 



AND THE WAY OUT 265 

this principle. If it is right for a great merchant to have 
dealings with his banker, if it is indispensable for the 
due carrying on of the business of the rich men that they 
should have at their elbow a credit system which will 
from time to time accommodate them with needful 
advances and enable them to stand up against the pres- 
sure of sudden demands, which otherwise would wreck 
them, then surely the case is still stronger for providing 
a similar resource for the smaller men, the weaker men. 
At present, Society is organized far too much on the 
principle of giving to him who hath so that he shall have 
more abundantly, and taking away from him who hath 
not even that which he hath. 

If we are to really benefit the poor, we can only do so 
by practical measures. We have merely to look round 
and see the kind of advantages which wealthy men find 
indispensable for the due management of their business, 
and ask ourselves whether poor men cannot be supplied 
with the same opportunities. The reason why they are 
not is obvious. To supply the needs of the rich is a 
means of making yourself rich ; to supply the needs of the 
poor will involve you in trouble so out of proportion to 
the profit that the game may not be worth the candle. 
Men go into banking and other businesses for the sake 
of obtaining what the American humorist said was the 
chief end of man in these modern times, namely, "ten per 
cent." To obtain a ten per cent, what will not men do? 
They will penetrate the bowels of the earth, explore the 
depths of the sea ascend the snow-capped mountain's 
highest peak, or navig the air, if they can be guaran- 
teed a ten par cen I do not venture to suggest that the 
business of a Poor Man's Bank would yield ten percent., 
or even five, but I think it might be made to pay its 
expenses, and the resulting gain to the community would 
be enormous. 



266 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Ask any merchant in your acquaintance where his busi- 
ness would be if he had no banker, and then, when you 
have his answer, ask yourself whether it would not be an 
object worth taking some trouble to secure, to furnish the 
great mass of our fellow countrymen, on sound business 
principles with the advantages of the credit system, which 
is found to work so beneficially for the "well-to-do" few. 

Some day, I hope, the State may be sufficiently enlight- 
ened to take up this business itself ; at present it is left 
in the hands of the pawnbroker and the loan agency, and 
a set of sharks, who cruelly prey upon the interests of 
the poor. The establishment of land banks, where the 
poor man is almost always a peasant, has been one of the 
features of modern legislation m Russia, Germany and 
elsewhere. The institution of a Poor Man's Bank will be, 
I hope, before long, one of the recognized objects of our 
own government. 

Pending that, I venture to throw out a suggestion, with- 
out in any way pledging myself to add this branch of 
activity to the already gigantic range of operations fore- 
shadowed in this book — Would it not be possible for some 
philanthropist with capital to establish on clearly defined 
principles a Poor Man's Bank for the making of small 
loans on good security, or making advances to those who 
are in danger of being overwhelmed by sudden financial 
pressure — in fact, for doing for the "little man" what all 
the banks do for the "big man ' ? 

Meanwhile should it enter into the heart of some 
benevolently disposed possessor of wealth to give the 
price of a race horse, or of an "old master," to form the 
nucleus of the necessary capital, I will certainly experi- 
ment in this direction. 

I can anticipate the sneer of the cynic who scoffs at 
what he calls my glorified pawnshop. I am indifferent to 
his sneers. A Mont de Pi^t^ — the very name (Mount of 



AND THE WAY OUT 267 

Piety) shows that the Poor Man's Bank is regarded as 
anything but an objectionable institution across the 
Channel — might be an excellent institution in England. 
Owing, however, to the vested interests of the existing 
traders it might be impossible for the State to establish 
it, excepting at a ruinous expense. There would be no 
difficulty, however of instituting a private Mont de Piet^, 
which would confer an incalculable boon upon the strug 
gling poor. 

Further, I am by no means indisposed to recognize the 
necessity of dealing with this subject in connection with 
the Labor Bureau, provided that one clearly recognized 
principle can be acted upon. That principle is that a man 
shall be free to bind him.self as security for the payment 
of a loan, that is to pledge himself to work for his rations 
until such time as he has repaid capital and interest. An 
illustration or two will explain what I mean. Here is a 
carpenter who comes to our Labor shed ; he is an honest, 
decent man, who has by sickness or some other calamity 
been reduced to destitution. He has by degrees pawned 
one article after another to keep body and soul together, 
until at last he has been compelled to pawn his tools. 
We register him and an employer comes along who wants 
a carpenter whom we can recommend. We at once sug- 
gest this man, but then arises this difficulty. He has no 
tools; what are we to do? As things are at present, the 
man loses the job and continues on our hands. Obvi- 
ously it is most desirable in the interest of the community 
that the man should get his tools out of pawn ; but who 
is to take the responsibility of advancing the money to 
redeem them? This difficulty might be met, I think, by 
the man entering into a legal undertaking to make over 
his wages to us, or such proportion of them as would be 
convenient to his circumstances, we in return undertaking 
to find him in food and shelter until such time as he has 



268 ^ IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

repaid the advance made. That obligation it would be 
the truest kindness to enforce with Rhadamantine severity. 
Until the man is out of debt he is not his own master. 
All that he can make, over his actual rations and Shelter 
money should belong to his creditor. Of course such an 
arrangement might be varied indefinitely by private agree- 
ment ; the repayment of instalments could be spread over 
a longer or shorter time, but the mainstay of the whole 
prmciple would be the execution of a legal agreement by 
which the man makes over the whole product of his labor 
to the Bank until he has repaid his debt. 

Take another instance, A clerk who has been many 
years in a situation, and has a large family which he has 
brought up respectably and educated. He has every pros- 
pect of retiring in a few years upon a superanuatmg 
allowance, but is suddenly confronted by a claim, often 
through no fault of his own, of a sum of fifty or a hundred 
pounds, which is quite beyond his means. He has been 
a careful, saving man, who has never borrowed a penny 
in his life, and does not know where to turn in his emer- 
gency. If he cannot raise this money he will be sold up, 
his family will be scattered, his situation and his prospect- 
ive pension will be lost, and blank ruin will stare him in 
the face. Now, were he in receipt of an income of ten times 
the amount, he would probably have a banking account, and, 
m consequence, be able to secure an advance of all he 
needed from his banker. Why should he not be able to 
pledge his salary, or a portion of it, to an Institution 
which would enable him to pay off his debt, on terms 
that, while sufficiently remunerative to the bank, would not 
unduly embarrass him? 

At present what does the poor wretch do? He con- 
sults his friends, who, it is quite possible, are as hard up 
as himself, or he applies to some loan agency, and as 
likely as not falls into the hands of sharpers, who indeed, 



AND THE WAY OUT 369 

let him have the money, but at interest altogether out of 
proportion to the risk which they run, and the use of the 
advantage which their position gives them to extort every 
penny he has. A great black book written within and 
without in letters of lamentation, mourning and woe, 
might be written on the dealings of these usurers with 
their victims in every land. 

It is of little service denouncing these extortioners. 
They have always existed, and probably always will ; but what 
we can do is to circumscribe the range of their operations and 
the number of their victims. This can only be done by a 
legitimate and merciful provision for these poor creatures 
in their hours of desperate need, so as to prevent their 
falling into the hands of these remorseless wretches, who 
have wrecked the fortunes of thousands, and driven many 
a decent man to suicide or a premature grave. 

There are endless ramifications of this principle, which 
do not need to be described here, but before leaving the 
subject I may allude to an evil which is a cruel reality, 
alas! to a multitude of unfortunate men and women. I 
refer to the working of the Hire system. The decent 
poor man or woman who is anxious to earn an honest 
penny b}^ the use of, it may be a mangle, or a sewing- 
machine, a lathe, or some other indispensable instrument, 
and is without the few pounds necessary to buy it, must 
take it on the Hire system — that is to say, for the accom 
modation of being allowed to pay for the machine by in- 
stalments — he is charged, in addition to the full market 
value of his purchase, ten or twenty times the amount of 
what would be a fair rate of interest, and more than this 
if he should at any time, through misfortune, fail in his 
payment the total amount paid will be confiscated, the 
machine seized, and the money lost. 

Here again we fall back on our analogy of what goes 
on in a small community where neighbors know each other. 



a-rO IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Take, for instance; when a lad who is recognized as bright, 
promising, honest and industrious, who wants to make a 
start in life which requires some little outlay, his better- 
to-do neighbor will often assist him by providing the 
capital necessary to enable him to make a way for himself 
m the world This neighbor does this because he knows 
the lad, because the family is at least related by ties of 
neighborhood, and the honor of the lad's family is a 
security upon which a man may safely advance a small 
sum. All this would equally apply to a destitute widow, 
an artisan suddenly thrown out of work, an orphan family 
or the like. In the large City all this kindly helpfulness 
disappears, and with it go all those small acts of service 
which are, as it were, the buffers which save men from 
being crushed to death against the iron walls of circum- 
stances. We must try to replace them in some way or 
other if we are to get back, not to the Garden of Eden, 
but to the ordinary conditions of life, as they exist in a 
healthy, small community. No institution, it is true, can 
ever replace the magic bond of personal friendship, but ii 
we have the whole mass of society permeated in every 
direction by brotherly associations established for the pur- 
pose of mutual help and sympathizing counsel, it is not 
an impossible thing to believe that we shall be able to do 
something to restore the missing element in modern civili- 
zation. 

Section 4. — The Poor Man's Lawyer. 
The moment you set about dealing with the wants of 
the people you discover that many of their difficulties are 
not material, but moral. There never was a greater mis- 
take than to imagine that you have only to fill a man's 
stomach, and clothe his back in order to secure his hap- 
piness. Man is, much more than a digestive apparatus, 
liable to get out of order. Hence, while it is important 
to remember that man has a stomach, it is also necessary 



AND THE WAY OUT 37 1 

to bear in mind that he has a heart, and a mind that is 
frequently sorely troubled by difficulties which, if he lived 
in a friendly world, would often disappear. A man, and 
stiil more a woman, stands often quite as much in need 
of a trusted adviser as he or she does of a dinner or a 
dress Many a poor soul is miserable all the day long, 
and gets dragged down deeper and deeper into the depths 
of sin and sorrow and despair for want of a sympathizing 
friend, who can give her advice, and make her feel that 
somebody in the world cares for her, and will help her if 
tney can. 

If we are to bring back the sense of brotherhood to th6 
world, we must confront this difficulty. God, it was said 
in old time, setteth the desolate in families ; but somehow, 
in our time, the desolate wander alone in the midst of a 
careless and unsympathizing world. "There is no one 
who cares for my soul. There is no creature loves me, 
and if I die no one will pity me,' is surely one of the 
bitterest cries that can burst from a breaking heart. One 
of the secrets of the success of the Salvation Army is, 
that the friendless of the world find friends in it. There 
is not one sinner in the world — no matter how degraded 
and dirty he may be — whom my people will not rejoice to 
take by the hand and pray with, and labor for, if thereby 
they can but snatch him as a brand from the burning. 

Now, we want to make more use of this, to make the 
Salvation Army the nucleus of a great agency for bringing 
comfort and counsel to those who are at their wit's end, 
feeling as if in the whole world there was no one to whom 
they could go. 

What we want to do Is to exemplify to the world the 
family idea. 'Our Father" is the keynote. One is Our 
Father, then all we are brethren. But in a family, if 
anyone is troubled in mind or conscience, there is no 
difficulty. The daughter goes to her father, or the son to 



«72 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

his mother^ and pour out their soul's troubles, and are 
relieved. If there is any serious difficulty a family council 
is held, and all unite their will and their resources to get 
matters put straight. This is what we mean to try to 
get done in the New organization of Society for which 
we are laboring. We cannot know better than God 
Almighty what will do good to man. We are content to 
follow on His lines, and to mend the world we shall seek 
to restore something of the family idea to the many 
hundreds of thousands — nay, millions — who have no one 
wiser or more experienced than themselves, to whom they 
can take their sorrows, or consult m their difficulties. 

Of course we can do this but imperfectly. Only God 
can create a mother." But Society needs a great deal of 
mothering, much more than it gets. And as a child 
needs a mother to run to in its difficulties and troubles, 
to whom it can let out its little heart m confidence, so 
men and women, weary and worn in the battles of life, 
need some one to whom they can go when pressed down 
with a sense of wrongs suffered or done, knowing that 
their confidence will be preserved inviolate, and that theii' 
statements will be received with sympathy. I propose to 
attempt to meet this want. I shall establish a depart- 
ment, over which I shall place the wisest, the pitifullest, 
and the most sagacious men and women whom I can find 
on my staff, to whom those m trouble and perplexity shall 
be invited to address themselves. It is no use saying that we 
love our fellow men unless we try to help them, and it is 
no use pretending to sympathize with the heavy burdens 
which darken their lives unless we try to ease them and 
to lighten their existence. 

Insomuch as we have more practical experience of life 
than other men, by so much are we bound to help their 
inexperience, and Sxjare our talents with them. But if 
we believe they are our brothers, and that One is our 



AND THE WAY OUT %7t 

Father, even the God who will come to judge us hereafter 
for all the deeds that we have done in the body, then must 
we constitute, in some such imperfect way as is open to 
us, the parental ofHce. We must be willing to receive 
the outpourings of our struggling fellow men, to listen to 
the long-buried secret that has troubled the human heart, 
and to welcome, instead of repelling, those who would obey 
the Apostolic precept : "To confess their sins, one to 
another." Let not that word confession scandalize any. 
Confession of the most open sort ; confession on the public 
platform before the presence of all the man's former asso- 
ciates in sin has long been one of the most potent weapons 
by which the Salvation Army has won its victories. 
That confession we have long imposed on all our converts, 
and it is the only confession which seems to us to be a 
condition of Salvation. But this suggestion is of a differ- 
ent kind. It is not imposed as a means of grace. It is 
not put forward as a preliminary to the absolution which 
no one can pronounce but our Lord Himself. It is 
merely a response on our part to one of the deepest needs 
and secret longings of the actual men and women who are 
meeting us daily in our work. Why should they be left 
to brood in misery over their secret sin, when a plain 
straightforward talk with a man or woman selected for his 
or her sympathetic common sense and spiritual experience 
might take the weight off their shoulders which is crushing 
them into dull despair? 

Not for absolution, but for sympathy and direction, do 
I propose to establish my Advice Bureau in definite form, 
for m practice it has been in existence for some time, 
and wonderful things have been done in the direction on 
which I contemplate it working. I have no pleasure in 
inventing these departments. They all entail hard work 
and no end of anxiety. But if we are to represent the 

love of God to men, we must minister to all the wants 
i8 



274 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

and needs of the human heart. Nor is it only in affair^ 
of the heart that this Advice Bureau will be of service. 
It will be quite as useful in affairs of the head. As I 
conceive it, the Advice Bureau will be 

THE POOR man's LAWYER AND THE POOR MAN's TRIBUNE. 

There are no means in London, so far as my knowledge 
goes, by which the poor and needy can obtain any legal 
assistance in the varied oppressions and difBculties from 
which they must, in consequence of their poverty and 
associations, be continually suffering. 

While the "well-to-do' classes can fall back upon skilful 
friends for direction, or avail themselves of the learning 
and experience of the legal profession, the poor man has 
literally no one qualified to counsel him on such matters. 
In cases of sickness he can apply to the parish doctor or 
the great hospital, and receive an odd word or two of 
advice, with a bottle of physic, which may or may not be 
of service. But if his circumstances are sick, out of 
order, in danger of carrying him to utter destitution, or 
to prison, or to the Union, he has no one to appeal to 
who has the willingness or the ability to help him. 

Now, we want to create a Court of Counsel or Appeal, 
to which anyone suffering from imposition having to do 
with person, liberty, or property, or anything else of 
sufficient importance, can apply, and obtain not only 
advice, but practical assistance. 

Among others for whom this Court would be devised is 
the shamefully-neglected class of Widows, of whom in the 
East of London there are 6,000, mostly in very destitute 
circumstances. In the whole of London there cannot be 
less than 20,000, and in England and Wales it is estima- 
ted there are 100,000, fifty thousand of whom are probably 
poor and friendless. 

The treatment of these poor people by the nation is a 
crying scandal. Take the case of the average widow.. 



AND THE WAY OUT 275 

even when left In comfortable circumstances. She will 
often be launched into a sea of perplexity, although able 
to avail herself of the best advice. But think of the 
multitudes of poor women, who, when they close their 
husband's eyes, lose the only friend who knows anything 
about their circumstances. There may be a trifle of 
money or a struggling business or a little income connec- 
ted with property or some other possession, all needing 
immediate attention, and that of a skilful sort, in order 
to enable the poor creature to weather the storm, and 
avoid the vortex of utter destitution. 

All we have said applies equally to orphans and friend- 
less people generally. Nothing, however, short of a 
national institution could meet the necessities of all 
such cases. But we can do something, and in matters 
already referred to, such as involve loss of property, 
malicious prosecution, criminal and otherwise, we can 
render substantial assistance 

In carrying out this purpose it will be no part of our 
plan to encourage legal proceedings in others, or to have 
recourse to them ourselves. All resort to law would be 
avoided either in counselor practice, unless, absolutely 
necessary. But where manifest injustice and wrong are 
perpetrated, and every other method of obtaining repara- 
tion fails, we shall avail ourselves of the assistance the 
Law affords. 

Our great hope of usefulness, however, in this depart- 
ment lies in prevention. The knowledge that the 
oppressed poor have in us a friend able to speak for 
them will often prevent the injustice which cowardly and 
avaricious persons might otherwise inflict, and the same 
considerations may induce them to accord without com- 
pulsion the right of the weak and friendless. I also calcu- 
late upon a wide sphere of usefulness in the direction of 
friendly arbitration and intervention. There will be at 



376 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

least one disinterested tribunal, however humble, to which 
business, domestic, or any other questions of a conten- 
tious and litigious nature can be referred without involv- 
ing any serious costs. The following incidents have been 
gathered from operations already undertaken in this direc- 
tion, and will explain and illustrate the kind of work we 
contemplate, and some of the benefits that may be 
expected to follow from it • 

About four years ago a young and delicate girl, the 
daughter of a pilot, came to us in great distress. Her 
story was that of thousands of others. She had been 
betrayed by a man in a good position in the West End, 
and was now the mother of an infant child. 

Just before her confinement her seducer had taken her 
to his solicitors and made her sign and swear an affidavit 
to the effect that he was not the father of the then 
expected child. Upon this he gave her a few pounds in 
settlement of all claims upon him. The poor thing was 
in great poverty and distress. Through our solicitors, we 
immediately opened communications with the man, and 
after negotiations, he, to avoid further proceedings, was 
compelled to secure by a deed a proper allowance to his 
unfortunate victim for the maintenance of her child. 

SHADOWED AND CAUGHT. 

A was induced to leave a comfortable home to 

become the governess of the motherless chUdren of Mr. 

G , whom she found to be a kind and considerate 

employer. After she had been in his service some little 
time he proposed Chat she should take a trip to London 
To this she very jl::dly consented, all the more so when 
he offered to t:.ive her himself to a good appointment he 
had secured for her. In London he seduced her, and kept 
her as his mistress until, tired of her, he told her to go 
and do as "other women did.' 

Instead of descending to this infamy, she procured 
work, and so supported herself and child in some degree of 
comfort, when he sought her out and agam dragged her 
down. Another child was born, and a second time he 
threw her up and left her to starve. It was then she 
applied to our people. We hunted up the man, followed 



AND THE WAY OUT Mf 

him to the country, threatened him with public exposure," 
and forced from him the payment to his victim of ;£"6q 
down, an allowance of ^i a week, and an Insurance Policy 
on his life for ^450 in her favor. 

;^6o FROM ITALY. 

C. was seduced by a young Italian of good position in 
society, who promised to marry her, but a short time 
before the day fixed for the ceremony he told her urgent 
business called him abroad. He assured her that he would 
return in two years and make her his wife. He wrote 
occasionally, and at last broke her heart by sending the 
news of his marriage to another, adding insult to injury 
by suggesting that she should come and live with his wife 
as her maid, offering at the same time to pay for the 
maintenance of the child till it was old enough to be- 
placed in charge of the captain of one of the vessels 
belonging to his firm. 

None of these promises were fulfilled, and C, with her 
mother's assistance, for a time managed to support herself 
and child ; but the mother, worn out by age and trouble, 
could help her no longer, and the poor girl was driven to 
despair. Her case was brought before us, and we at once 
set to work to assist her. The Consul of the town where 
the seducer lived in style was communicated with. 
Approaches were made to the young man's father, who, 
to save the dishonor that would follow exposure, paid 
over ^60. This helps to maintain the child ; and the girl 
is in domestic service and doing well. 

THE HIRE SYSTEM. 

The most cruel wrongs are frequently inflicted on the 
very poorest persons, in connection with this method of 
obtaining Furniture, Sewing Machines, Mangles, or other 
articles. Caught by the lure of misleading advertisements, 
the poor are induced to purchase articles to be paid for 
by weekly or monthly instalments. They struggle through 
half the amount perhaps, at all manner of sacrifice, when 
some delay in the payment is made th© occasion not onlv 
for seizing the goods, which they have come to regard as 
their own, and on which their very existence depends, but 



278 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

by availing themselves of some technical clause in the 
agreement, for robbing them in addition. In such circum- 
stances the poor things, being utterly friendless, have to 
submit to these infamous extortions without remedy Our 
Bureau will be open to all such. 

TALLYMEN, MONEY LENDERS, AND BILLS-OF-SALEMONGERS- 

Here again we have a class who prey upon the poverty 
of the people, inducing them to purchase things for which 
they have often no immediate use — anyway for which there 
is no real necessity — by all manner of specious promises 
as to easy terms of repayment. And once having got 
their dupes into their power they drag them down to 
misery, and very often utter temporal ruin ; once in their 
net escape is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. We 
propose to help the poor victims by this Scheme, as far 
as possible. 

Our Bureau, we expect will be of immense service to 
Clergymen, Ministers of all denominations. District 
Visitors, Missionaries, and others who freely mix among 
the poor, seeing that they must be frequently appealed to 
for legal advice, which they were quite unable to give, 
and equally at a loss to obtain. We should always be 
very glad to assist such. 

THE DEFENCE OF UNDEFENDED PERSONS, 

The conviction is gradually fixing itself upon the public 
mind that a not inconsiderable number of innocent per- 
sons are from time to time convicted of crimes ard 
offenses, the reason for which often is the mere inability 
to secure an efficient defence. Although there are several 
societies in London and the country dealing with the 
criminal classes, and more particularly with discharged 
prisoners, yet there does not appear to be one for the 
purpose of assisting unconvicted prisoners. This work w« 
propose boldly to take up. 

By this and many other ways we shall help those 



AND THE WAY OUT 279 

charged with criminal offenses, who, on a most careful 
enquiry, might reasonably be supposed to be innocent, 
but who, through want of means, are unable to obtain the 
legal assistance, and produce the evidence necessary for 
an efficient defence. 

We shall not pretend authoritatively to judge as to who 
is innocent or who is guilty, but if after full explanation 
and enquiry the person charged may reasonably be supposed 
to be innocent, and is not in a position to defend himself, 
then we should feel free to advise such a case, hoping 
thereby to save such person and his family and friends 
from much misery and possibly from utter ruin. 

Mr. Justice Field recently remarked : — 

"For a man to assist another man who was under a crimi- 
nal charge was a highly laudable and praiseworthy act. If a 
man was without friends, and an Englishman came forward 
and legitimately and for the purpose of honestly assist- 
ing him with means to put before the Court his case, 
that was a highly laudable and praiseworthy act, and he 
should be the last man in the country to complain of any 
man for so doing. " 

These remarks are endorsed by most Judges and 
Magistrates, and our Advice Bureau will give practical 
effect to them. 

In every case an attempt will be made to secure, not only 
the outward reformation, but the actual regeneration of all 
whom we assist. Special attention, as has been described 
under the '^ Criminal Reform Department," will be paid to 
first offenders. 

We shall endeavor also to assist, as far as we have ability, 
the Wives and Children of persons who are undergoing 
sentences, by endeavoring to obtain for them employment, 
or otherwise rendering them help. Hundreds of this class 
fall into the deepest distress and demoralization through 
want of friendly aid in the forlorn circumstances in which 
they find themselves on the conviction of relatives on whom 



380 



IN DARKEST ENGLAND 



they have been dependent for a lIveHhood, or for protection 
and direction in the ordinary affairs of life. 

This department will also be responsible for gathering in- 
telligence, spreading information, and the general prosecu- 
tion of such measures as are likely to lead to the much-needed 
beneficial changes in our Prison Management. In short, it 
will seek to become the true friend and saviour of the Crimi- 
nal Classes in general, and in doing so we shall desire to act 
in harmony with the societies at present in existence, who 
may be seeking for objects kindred to the Advice Bureau. 

We pen the following list to give some idea of the topics 
on which the Advice Bureau may be consulted: — 



Accidents, Claim for 
Administration of Es- 
tates 
Adulteration of Food 

and Drugs 
Agency, Questions of 
Agreements, Disputed 
Affiliation Cases 
Animals, Cruelty to 
Arrest. Wrongful 
Assault 
Bankruptcies 
Bills of Exchange . 
Bills of Sale 
Bonds, Forfeited 
Breach of Promise 
Children. Cruelty to 
Children, Custody of 
Compensation for In- 
juries 
" for Accident 
for Defamation 
for Loss of Em- 
ployment, &c , 
&c. 
Confiscation by Land- 
lords 
Contracts. Breach of 
Copyright, Infringe- 
ment of 



County Court Cases 

Debts 

Distress, Illegal 

Divorce 

Ejectment Cases 

Employers'LiabilityAct 

Executors, Duties of 

Factory Act, Branch of 

Fraud, Attempted 

Goodwill, Sale of 

Guarantee, Forfeited 

Heir-at-Law 

Husbands and Wives, 
Disputes of 

Imprisonment, False 

Infants, Custody of 

Intestacy, Cases of 

Judgment Summonses 

Landlord and Tenant 
Cases 

Leases. Lapses and Re- 
newals of 

Legacies, Disputed 

Libel Cases 

Licenses 

Marriage Law, Ques- 
tion of the 

Masters'* and Servants' 
Acts 

Mortgages 



Meeting, Right of Pub 

lie 
Negligence, Alleged 
Next of Kin Wanted 
Nuisances. Alleged 
Partnership, the Law of 
Patents, Registration 
and Infringement of 
Pawnbrokers and their 

Pledges 
Police Cases 
Probate 

Rates and Taxes 
Reversionary Interests 
Seduction, Cases of 
Servants' Wrongful 

Dismissal 
Sheriffs 

Sureties Estreated 
Tenancies Disputed 
Trade Marks, Infringe- 
ment of 
Trespass. Cases of 
Trustees and Trusts 
Wages Kept Back 
Wills, Disputed and 

Unproved 
Women, Cruelty to 
Workmen, Grievances 
of &c &c. 



The Advic® Bureau will therefore be, first of all, a place 
where men and women in trouble can come when they please 
to communicate in confidence the cause of their anxiety, 



AND THE WAY OUT ^81" 

with a certainty that they will receive a sympathetic heal- 
ing and the best advice. 

Secondly, it will be a Poor Man's Lawyer, giving the 
best legal counsel as to the course to be pursued in the vari- 
ous circumstances with which the poor find themselves con- 
fronted. 

Thirdly, it will be a Poor man's Tribune, and will under- 
take the defence of friendlness prisoners supposed to be' 
innocent, together with the resistance of illegal extortions, 
and the prosecution of offenders v/ho refuse legal satisfaction 
for the wrongs they have committed. 

Fourthly, it will act wherever it is called upon as a Court 
of Arbitration between litigants, where the decision will be 
according to equity, and the costs cut down to the lowest 
possible figure. 

Such a department cannot be improvised; but it is al- 
ready in a fair way of development, and it can hardly fail to 
do great good. 

Section 5. — Our Intelligence Department. 

An indispensable adjunct of this Scheme will be the 
institution of what may be called an Intelligence Depart- 
ment at Headquarters. Power, it has been said, belongs 
to the best informed, and if we are effectually to deal with 
the forces of social evil, we must have ready at our fingers' 
ends the accumulated experience and information of the whole 
world on this subject. The collection of facts and the sys- 
tematic record of them would be invaluable, rendering the 
results of the experiments of previous generations available 
for the information of our ow^n. 

At the present there is no central institution, either gov- 
ernmental or otherwise, in this country or any other, which 
charges itself with the duty of collecting and collating the 
ideas and conclusions on Social Economy, so far as they 
are likely to help the solution of the problem we have in 



282 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

hand. The British Home Office has only begun to index 
its own papers. The Local Government Board is in a sim- 
lar condition, and, although each particular Blue Book may 
be admirably indexed, there is no classified index of the 
whole series. If this is the case with the Government, it 
is not likely that the innumerable private organizations 
which are pecking here and there at the social questiou 
should possess any systematized method for the purpose of 
comparing notes and storing information. This Intelligence 
Department, which I propose to found on a small scale at 
first, will have in it the germ of vast extension, which will, 
if adequately supported, become a kind of University, in 
which the accumulated experiences of the human race will 
be massed, digested, and rendered available to the humblest 
toiler in the great work of social reform. At the present 
moment, who is there that can produce in any of our 
museums and universities as much as a classified index of 
publications relating to one of the many heads under which 
I have dealt with this subject? Who is there among all 
our wise men and social reformers that can send me a list 
of all the best tracts upon — say, the establishment of agri- 
cultural colonies or the experiments that have been made in 
dealing with inebriates; or the best plans for the con- 
struction of a working man's cottage ? 

For the development of this Scheme I want an Office to 
begin with, in which, under the head of the varied subjects 
treated of in this volume, I may have arranged the con- 
densed essence of all the best books that have been written, 
and the names and addresses of those whose opinions are 
worth having upon them, together with a note of what 
those opinions are, and the results of experiments which 
have been made in relation to them. I want to establish a 
system which will enable me to use, not only the eyes and 
hands of Salvation Officers, but of sympathetic friends in 
all parts of the world, for purposes of noticing and report- 



And the way out m^ 

ing at once every social experiment of importance, any 
words of wisdom on the social question, whether it may be 
the breeding of rabbits, the organization of an emigration 
service, the best method of conducting a Cottage Farm, or 
the best way of cooking potatoes. There is nothing in the 
whole range of our operations upon which we should not be 
accumulating and recording the results of human experi- 
ence. What I want is to get the essence of wisdom which 
the wisest have gathered from the widest experience, rend- 
ered instantly available for the humblest worker in the 
Salvation Factory or Farm Colony, and for any other toiler 
in similar fields of social progress. 

It can be done, and in the service of the people it ought 
to be done. I look for helpers in this department among 
those who hitherto may not have cared for the Salvation 
Army, but who in the seclusion of their studies and libraries 
will assist in the compiling of this great Index of Sociologi- 
cal Experiments, and who would be willing, in this form, 
to help in this Scheme, as Associates, for the amelioration 
of the condition of the people, if in nothing else than in 
using their eyes and ears, and giving me the benefit of 
their brains as to where knowledge lies, and how it can best 
be utilized. 1 propose to make a beginning by putting two 
capable men and a boy in an office, with instructions to cut 
out, preserve and verify all contemporary records in the 
daily and weekly press that have a bearing upon any branch 
of our departments. Round these two men and a boy will 
grow up, I confidently believe, a vast organization of zeal- 
ous, unpaid workers, who will co-operate in making our 
Intelligence Department a great storehouse of information 
— a universal library where any man may learn what is the 
sum of human knowledge upon any branch of the subject 
which we have taken in hand. 



284 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 



Section 6. — Co-operation in General. 

If anyone asked me to state in one word what seemed 
likely to be the key of the solution of the Social Problem 
I should answer unhesitatingly Co-operation. It being 
always understood that it is Co-operation conducted on 
righteous principles, and for wise and benevolent ends ; 
otherwise Association cannot be expected to bear any more 
profitable fruit than Individualism. Co-operation is 
applied association — association for the purpose of pro- 
duction and distribution. Co-operation implies the volun- 
tary combination of individuals to the attaining an object 
by mutual help, mutual counsel, and mutual effort. There 
is a great deal of idle talk in the world just now about 
capital, as if capital were the enemy of labor. It is quite 
true that there are capitalists not a few who may be 
regarded as the enemies, not only of labor, but of the 
human race ; but capital itself, so far from being a natural 
eneni}^ of labor, is the great object which the laborer has 
constantly in view. However much an agitator may 
denounce capital, his one great grievance is that he has 
not enough of it for himself. Capital, therefore, is not an 
evil in itself ; on the contrary, it is good — so good that 
one of the great aims of the social reformer ought to be to 
facilitate its widest possible distribution among his fellow- 
men. It is the congestion of capital that is evil, and the 
labor question will never be finally solved until every 
laborer is his own capitalist. 

All this is trite enough, and has been said a thousand 
times already, but, unfortunately with the saying of it the 
matter ends. Co-operation has been brought into prac- 
tice in relation to distribution with considerable success 
but co-operation, as a means of production, has not 
achieved anything like the success that was anticipated. 



AND THE WAY OUT 385 

Again and again enterprises have been begun on co-oper- 
ative principles which bid fair, in the opinion of the 
promoters, to succeed ; but after one, two, three, or ten 
years, the enterprise which was started with such high 
hopes has dwindled away into either total or partial failure. 
At present, many co-operative undertakings are nothing 
more or less than huge Joint Stock Limited Liability 
concerns, shares of which are held largely by working 
people, but not, necessarily, and sometimes not at all by 
those who are actually employed in the so-called co- 
operative business. Now, why is this? Why do co- 
operative firms, co-operative factories, and co-operative 
Utopias so very often come to grief? 1 believe the cause is 
an open secret, and can be discerned by anyone who will 
lock at the subject with an open eye. 

The success of industrial concerns is largely a question 
of management. Mana^^ement signifies government, and 
government implies authority, and authority is the last 
thing which co-operators of the Utopian order are willing 
to recognize as an element essential to the success of 
their Schemes. The co-operative institution which is 
governed on Parliamentary principles, with unlimited right 
of debate and*right of obstruction, will never be able to 
compete successfully with institutions which are directed 
by a single brain wielding the united resources of a dis- 
ciplined and obedient army of workers. Hence, to make 
co-operation a success you must superadd to the principle 
of consent the principle of authority ; you must invest m 
those to whom you entrust the management of your co- 
operative establishment the same liberty of action that is 
possessed by the owner of works on the other side of the 
street. There is no delusion more common among men 
than the belief that liberty, which is a good thing in itself, 
is so good as to enable those who possess it to dispense 
with all other good things. But as no man lives by bread 



286 iN DARKEST ENGLAND 

alone, neither can nations or factories or shipyards exist 
solely upon unlimited freedom to have their own way. 
In co-operation we stand pretty much where the French 
nation stood immediately after the outburst of the 
Revolution. In the enthusiasm of the proclamation of 
the rights of man, and the repudiation of the rotten and 
effete regijiie of the Bourbons, the French peasants and 
workmen imagined that they were inaugurating the millen- 
nium when they scrawled Liberty, Equality, and Frater- 
nity across all the churches in every city of France. They 
carried their principles of freedom and license to the logical 
ultimate, and attempted to manage their army on Parlia- 
mentary principles. It did not work ; their undisciplined 
levies were driven back ; disorder reigned in the Repub- 
lican camp ; and the French Revolution would have been 
stifled in its cradle had not the instinct of the nation 
discerned in time the weak point in its armor. Menaced 
by foreign wars and intestine revolt, the Republic estab- 
lished an iron discipline in its army, and enforced obedience 
by the summary process of military execution. The 
liberty and the enthusiasm developed by the outburst of 
the long pent-up revolutionary forces supplied the motive 
power, but it was the discipline of the' revolutionary 
armies, the stern, unbending obedience which was 
enforced in all ranks from the highest to the lowest, 
which created for Napoleon the admirable military instru- 
ment by which he shattered every throne in Europe and 
swept in triumph from Paris to Moscow. 

In industrial affairs we are very much like the French 
Republic before it tempered its doctrine of the rights of 
man by the duty of obedience on the part of the soldier. 
We have got to introduce discipline into the industrial 
army, we have to superadd the principle of authority to 
the principle of co-operation, and so to enable the worker 
to profit to the full by the increased productiveness of the 



AND THE WAY OUT 387 

willing labor of men who are employed in their own work- 
shops and on their own property. There is no need to 
clamor for great schemes of State Socialism. The whole 
thing can be done simply, economically and speedily if 
only the workers will practice as much self-denial for the 
sake of establishing themselves as capitalists, as the 
Soldiers of the Salvation Army practice every year in 
Self Denial Week. What is the sense of never making a 
levy except during a strike? Instead of calling for a 
shilling, or two shillings a week in order to maintain men 
who are starving in idleness because of a dispute with 
their masters, why should there not be a levy kept up for 
weeks or months, by the workers, for the purpose of 
setting themselves up in business as masters? There 
would then be no longer a capitalist owner face to face 
with the masses of the proletariat, but all the means of 
production, the plant, and all the accumulated resources 
of capital would really be at the disposal of labor. This 
will never be done, however, as long as co-operative 
experiments are carried on in the present archaic fashion. 

Believing in co-operation as the ultimate solution, if to 
co-operation you can add subordination, I am disposed to 
attempt something in this direction in my new Social 
Scheme. I shall endeavor to start a Co-operative Farm 
on the principles of Ralahine, and base the whole of my 
Farm Colony on a Co-operative foundation. 

In starting this little Co-operative commonwealth, I am 
reminded by those who are always at a man's elbow to 
fill him with forebodings of ill, to look at the failures, 
which I have just referred to, which make up the history 
of the attempt to realize ideal commonwealths in this 
practical workaday world. Now, I have read the history 
of the many attempts at co-operation that have been 
made to form communistic settlements in the United 
States, and am perfectly familiar with the sorrowful fate 



388 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

with which nearly all have been overtaken ; the story of 
their failures does not deter me in the least, for I regard 
them as nothing more than warnings to avoid certain mis- 
takes, beacons to illustrate the need of proceeding on a differ- 
ent track. Broadly speaking, your experimental communi- 
ties fail because your Utopias all start upon the system of 
equality and government by vote of the majority, and, as 
a necessary and unavoidable consequence, your Utopias 
get to loggerheads, and Utopia goes to smash. I shall 
avoid that rock. The Farm Colony, like all the other 
departments of the Scheme, will be governed, not on the 
principle of counting noses, but on the exactly opposite 
principle of admitting no noses into the concern that are 
not willing to be guided by the directing brain. It will 
be managed on principles which assert that the fittest 
ought to rule, and it will provide for the fittest being 
selected, and having got them at the top, will insist on 
universal and unquestioning obedience from those at the 
bottom. If any one does not like to work for his rations 
and submit to the orders of his superior Officers he can 
leave. There is no compulsion on him to stay. The 
world is wide, and outside the confines of our Colony and 
the operations of our Corps my authority does not extend. 
But judging from our brief experience it is not from 
revolt against authority that the Scheme is destined to fail. 
There cannot be a greater mistake in this world than to 
imagine that men object to be governed. They like to be 
governed, provided that the governor has his "head screwed 
on right" and that he is prompt to hear and ready to see 
and recognize all that is vital to the interests of the com- 
monwealth. So far from there being an innate objection on 
the part of mankind to being governed, the instinct to 
obey is so universal that even when governments have gone 
blind, and deaf, and paralytic, rotten with corruption and 
hopelessly behind the times, they still contrive to live on. 



AND THE WAY OUT 289 

Against a capable Government no people ever rebel, only 
when stupidity and incapacity have taken possession of 
the seat of power do insurrections break out. 

Section 7. — A Matrimonial Bureau. 

There is another direction in which something ought to 
be done to restore the natural advantages enjoyed by every 
rural community which have been destroyed by the increas- 
ing tendency of mankind to come together in huge masses. 
I refer to that which is after all one of the most important 
elements in every human life, that of marrying and giving 
in marriage. In the natural life of a country village all the 
lads and lasses grow up together, they meet together in 
religious associations, in daily employments, and in their 
amusements on the village green. They have learned their 
A, B, C and pothooks together, and when the time comes 
for pairing off they have had excellent opportunities of 
knowing the qualities and the defects of those whom they 
select as their partners in life. Everything in such a com- 
munity lends itself naturally to the indispensable prelimi- 
naries of love-making and courtships, which, however 
much they may be laughed at, contribute more than 
most things to the happiness of life. But in a great 
city all this is destroyed. In London at the present 
moment how many hundreds, nay, thousands, of young 
men and young women, who are living in lodgings, are 
practically without any opportunity of making the acquain- 
tance of each other, or of any one of the other sex ! The 
street is no doubt the city substitute for the village green, 
and what a substitute it is ! 

It has been bitterly said by one who knew well what he 
was talking about, '^ There are thousands of young men 
to-day who have no right to call any woman by her Chris- 
tian name, except the girls they meet plying their dreadful 
trade in our public thoroughfares." As long as that is the 
^9 



390 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

case, vice has an enormous advantage over virtue; such an 
abnormal social arrangement interdicts morality and places 
a vast premium upon prostitution. We must get back to 
nature if we have to cope with this ghastly evil. 

There ought to be more opportunities afforded for nealthy 
human intercourse between young men and young women, 
nor can Society rid itself of a great responsibility for all the 
wrecks of manhood and womanhood with which our streets 
are strewn, unless it does make some attempt to bridge this 
hideous chasm which yawns between the two halves of 
humanity. The older I grow the more absolutely am I 
opposed to anything that violates the fundamental law of 
the family. Humanity is composed of two sexes, and woe 
be to those who attempt to separate them into distinct 
bodies, making of each half, one whole ! It has been tried 
in monasteries and convents with but poor success, yet 
what our fervent Protestants do not seem to see is that we 
are reconstructing a similar false system for our young peo- 
ple without the safeguards and the restraints of convent 
walls or the sanctifying influence of religious conviction. 
The conditions of City life, the absence of the enforced 
companionship of the village and small town, the difficulty 
of young people finding harmless opportunities of friendly 
intercourse, all tends to create classes of celibates who are 
not chaste, and whose irregular and lawless indulgence of a 
universal instinct is one of the most melancholy features of 
the present state of society. Nay, so generally is this rec- 
ognized, that one of the terms by which one of the conse- 
quences of this unnatural state of things is popularly known 
is ''the social evil," as if all other social evils were com- 
paratively unworthy of notice in comparison to this. 

While I have been busily occupied in working out my 
Scheme for the registration of labor, it has occurred to me 
more than once, why could not something like the same 
plan be adopted in relation to men who want wives and 



AND THE WAY OUT 291 

women who want husbands ? Marriage is with most people 
largely a matter of opportunity Many a man and many a 
woman, who would, if they had come together, have formed 
a happy household, are leading at this moment miserable 
and solitary lives, suffering in body and in soul, in conse- 
quence of their exclusion from the natural state of matri- 
mony. Of course, the registration of the unmarried who 
wish to marry would be a matter of much greater delicacy 
than the registration of the joiners and stone-masons who 
wish to obtain work. But the thing is not impossible. I 
have repeatedly found in my experience that many a man 
and many a woman would only be too glad to have a friend- 
ly hint as to where they might prosecute their attentions or 
from which they might receive proposals. 

In connection with such an agency, if it were established 
— for I am not engaging to undertake this task — I am only 
throwing out a possible suggestion as to the development 
in the direction of meeting a much needed want, there 
might be added training homes for matrimony. My heart 
bleeds for many a young couple whom I see launching out in- 
to the sea of matrimony with no housewifery experience. 
The young girls who leave our public elementary schools and 
go out into factories have never been trained to home duties, 
and yet, when taken to wife, are unreasonably expected to fil 
worthily the difficult positions of the head of a household 
and the mother of a family. A month spent before mar- 
riage in a training home of housewifery would conduce 
much more to the happiness of the married life than the 
honeymoon which immediately follows it. 

Especially is this the case with those who marry to go 
abroad and settle in a distant country. I often marvel 
when I think of the utter helplessness of the modern 
woman, compared with the handiness of her grandmother. 
How many of our girls can even bake a loaf ? The baker 
has killed out one of our fundamental domestic arts. But 



292 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

if you are in the Backwoods or in the Prairie or in the Bush, 
no baker's eart comes round every morning with the new- 
made bread, and I have often thought with sorrow of the 
kind of stuff which this poor wife must serve up to her 
hungry husband. As it is with baking, so it is with wash- 
ing, with milking, with spinning, with all the arts and sci- 
ences of the household, which were formerly taught, as a 
matter of course, to all the daughters who were born in the 
world. Talk about woman's rights, one of the first of 
woman's rights is to be trained to her trade, to be queen of 
of her household, and mother of her children. 

Speaking of colonists leads me to the suggestion 
whether something could not be done to supply, on a well 
organized system, the thousands of bachelor miners or the 
vast host of unmarried males who are struggling with the 
wilderness on the outskirts of civilization, with capable 
wives from the overplus of marriageable females who abound 
in our great towns Woman supplied in adequate quanti- 
ties is the great moralizer of Society, but woman doled out as 
she is in the Far West and the Australian bush, in the propor- 
tion of one woman to about a dozen men, is a fertile source 
of vice and crime. Here again we must get back to nature, 
whose fundamental laws our social arrangements have rude- 
ly set on one side with consequences which as usual she 
does not fail to exact with remorseless severity. There 
have always been born into the world and continue to be 
born boys and girls in fairly equal proportions, but with 
colonizing and soldiering our men go away, leaving behind 
them a continually growing surplus of marriageable but un- 
married spinsters, who cannot spin, and who are utterly 
unable to find themselves husbands. This is a wide field 
on the discussion of which I must not enter. I merely indi- 
cate it as one of those departments in which an intelligent 
philanthrophy might find a great sphere for its endeavors 
but it would be better not to touch it at all than to deal 



AND THE WAY OUT 293 

With it with light-hearted precipitancy and without due 
consideration of all the difficulties and dangers connected 
therewith. Obstacles, however, exist to be overcome and 
converted into victories. There is even a certain fascina- 
tion about the difficult and dangerous, which appeals very 
strongly to all who know that it is the apparently insolvable 
difficulty which contains within its bosom the key to the 
problem which you are seeking to solve. 

Section 8. — Whitechapel-By-The-Sea. 

In considering the various means by which some substan- 
tial improvement can be made in the condition of the toil- 
ing masses, recreation cannot be omitted. I have repeat- 
edly had forced upon me the disirability of making it pos- 
sible for them to spend a few hours occasionally by the sea- 
side, or even at times three or four days. Notwithstanding 
the cheapened rates and frequent excursions, there are 
multitudes of the poor who, year in and out, never get 
beyond the crowded city, with the exception of dragging 
themselves and their children now and then to the parks on 
holidays or hot summer evenings. The majority, especially 
the inhabitants of the East of London, never get away from 
the sunless alleys and grimy streets in which they exist from 
year to year. It is true that a few here and there of the 
adult population, and a good many of the children, have a 
sort of annual charity excursion to Epping Forest, Hamp- 
ton Court, or perhaps to the sea. But it is only the min- 
ority. The vast number, while possessed of a passionate 
love of the sea, which only those who have mixed with them 
can conceive, pass their whole lives without having once 
looked over its blue waters, or watched its waves breaking 
at their feet. 

Now I am not so foolish as to dream that it is possible to 
make any such change in Society as will enable the poor 
man to take his wife and children for a fortnight's sojourn, 



294 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

during the oppressive summer days, to brace them up for 
their winter's task, although this might be as desirable in 
their case as in that of their more highly favored fellow- 
creatures. But I would make it possible for every man, 
woman and child, to get, now and then, a day's refreshing 
change by a visit to that never-failing source of interest. 

In the carrying out of this plan, we are met at the outset 
with a difficulty of some little magnitude, and that is the 
necessity of a vastly reduced charge in the cost of the journey. 
To do anything effective we must be able to get a man from 
Whitechapel or Stratford to the sea-side and back for a 
shilling. 

Unfortunately, London is sixty miles from the sea. Sup- 
pose we take it at seventy miles. This would involve a 
journey of one hundred and forty miles for the small sum of is. 
Can this be done? I think it can, and done to pay the rail- 
way companies; otherwise there is no ground to hope for 
this part of my Scheme ever being realized. But I think 
that this great boon can be granted to the poor people with- 
out the dividends being sensibly affected. I am told that 
the cost of haulage for an ordinary passenger train, carrying 
from five hundred to a thousand persons, is 2s. yd. per mile; 
a railway company could take six hundred passengers 
seventy miles there, and bring them seventy miles back, at 
a cost of ;^i8 IS. 8d. Six hundred passengers at a shilling 
is ;^30, so that there would be ^. clear profit to the company 
of nearly JP^ii on the haulage, towards the payment of inter- 
est on the the capital, wear and tear of line, etc. But I reck- 
on, at a very moderate computation, that two hundred 
thousand persons would travel to and fro every season. An 
addition of ;!^io,ooo to the exchequer of a railway company 
is not to be despised, and this would be a mere bagatelle to 
the indirect profits which would follow the establishment of 
a settlement which must in due course necessarily become 
yery speedily a large and active community. 



AND THE WAY OUT 295 

This It would be necessary to bring home to the railway- 
companies, and for the execution of this part of my Scheme 
I must wait till I get some manager sufficiently public- 
spirited to try the experiment. When such a man is found, 
I purpose to set at once about my Sea-Side Establishment. 
This will present the following special advantages, which I 
am quite certain will be duly appreciated by the very poor- 
est of the London population: — 

An estate of some three hundred acres would be purchased 
on which buildings would be erected, calculated to meet the 
wants of this class of excursionists. 

Refreshments would be provided at rates very similar to 
those charged at our London Food Depots. There would, 
of course, be greater facilities in the way of rooms and 
accommodation generally. 

Lodgings for invalids, children and those requiring to 
make a short stay in the place would be supplied at the 
lowest prices. Beds for single men and single women 
could be charged at the low rate of sixpence a night, and 
children in proportion, while accommodation of a suitable 
character, on very moderate terms, could be arranged for 
married people. 

No public-houses would be allowed within the precincts 
of the settlement. 

A park, playground, music, boats, covered conveniences 
for bathing, without the expense of hiring a machine, and 
other arrangements for the comfort and enjoyment of the 
people would be provided. 

The estate would form one of the Colonies of the general 
enterprise, and on it would be grown fruit, vegetables, 
flowers, and other produce for the use of the visitors, and 
sold at the lowest remunerative rates. One of the first 
provisions for the comfort of the excursionists would be the 
erection of a large hall, affording ample shelter in case 
pf unfavorable weather, and in this and other parts of the 



296 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

place there would be the fullest opportunity for ministers 
ci all denominations to hold religious services in connec- 
tion with any excursionists they might bring with them. 

There would be shops for tradesmen, houses for residents, 
a museum with a panorama and stuffed whale; boats would 
be let out at moderate prices, and a steamer to carry people 
so many miles out to sea, and so manjr miles back for a 
penny, with a possible bout of sickness, for which no extra 
charge would be made. 

In fact the railway fares and refreshment arrangements 
would be on such a scale, that a husband and wife could 
have a 70-mile ride through the green fields, the new-mown 
hay, the waving grain or fruit laden orchards; could wander 
for hours on the seashore, have comforting and nourishing 
refreshment, and be landed back at home, sober, cheered 
and invigorated for the small sum of 3s. A couple of 
children under 12 might be added at is. 6d, — nay a whole 
family, husband, wife and four children, supposing one 
is in arms, could have a day at the seaside, without obliga- 
tion or charity, for 5s. 

The gaunt, hungry inhabitants of the Slums would save 
up their halfpence, and come by thousands; clergymen 
would find it possible to bring half the poor and needy oc- 
cupants of their j)arishes; schools, mothers' meetings, and 
philanthrophic societies of all descriptions would come down 
wholesale; in short, what Brighton is to the West End and 
middle classes, this place would be to the East End poor, 
nay, to the poor of the Metropolis generally, a White- 
chapel-by-the-Sea. 

Now this ought to be done apart from my Scheme al 
together. The rich corporations which have the charge of 
the affairs of this great City, and the millionaires, who 
would never have amassed their fortunes but by the assist- 
ance of the masses, ought to say it shall be done. Suppose 
the Railroad Companies refused to lend the great highways, 



AND THE WAY OUT 297 

of which they have become the monopolists, for such an 
undertaking without a subvention, then the necessary sub- 
vention should be forthcoming. If it could be made possi- 
ble for the joyless toilers to come out of the sweater's den, 
or the stifling factory; if the seamstress could leave her 
needle, and the mother get away from the weary round of 
babydom and household drudgery for a day now and then, 
to the cooling, invigorating, heart-stirring influences of the 
sea, it should be done, even if it did cost a few paltry 
thousands. Let the men and woman who spend a little 
fortune every year in Continental tours, Alpine climbings, 
yacht excursions, and many another form of luxurious 
wanderings, come forward and say that it shall be possible 
for these crowds of thuir less fortunate brethren to have the 
opportunity of spending one day at least in the year by the 
sea. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Can it be Done and How? 
Section i. — The Credentials of the Salvation Army. 

Can this great work be done ? I believe it can. And I 
believe that it can be done by the Salvation Army, because 
it has ready to hand an organization of men and women, 
numerous enough and zealous enough to grapple with the 
enormous undertakmg. The work may prove beyond our 
powers. But this is not so manifest as to preclude us from 
wishing to make the attempt. That in itself is a qualifica- 
tion which is shared by no other organization — at present. 
If we can do it we have the field entirely to ourselves. The 
wealthy churches show no inclination to compete for the 
onerous privilege of making the experiment in this definite 
and practical form. Whether we have the power or not, we 
have, at least, the will, the ambition to do this great thing 
for the sake of our brethren, and therein lies our first cre- 
dential for being entrusted with the enterprise. 

The second credential is the fact that, while using all 
material means, our reliance is on the co-working power of 
God. We keep our powder dry, but we trust in Jehovah 
We go not forth in our own strength to this battle, our de- 
pendence is upon Him who can influence the heart of man. 
There is no doubt that the most satisfactory method of rais- 
ing a man must be to effect such a change in his views and. 

298 



IN DARKEST ENGLAND 299 

feelings that he shall voluntarily abandon his evil ways, give 
himself to industry and goodness in the midst of the very 
temptations and companionships that before led him astray, 
and live a Christian life, an example in himself of what can 
be done by the power of God in the very face of the most 
impossible circumstances. 

But herein lies the great difficulty again and again re- 
ferred to, men have not that force of character which will 
constrain them to avail themselves of the methods of deliv- 
erance. Now our scheme is based on the necessity of help- 
ing such. 

Our third credential is the fact that we have already out 
of practically nothing achieved so great a measure of suc- 
cess that we think we may reasonably be entrusted with 
this further duty. The ordinary operations of the Army 
have already effected most wonderful changes in the condi- 
tions of the poorest and worst. Multitudes of slaves of vice 
in every form have been delivered not only from these hab- 
its, but from the destitution and misery which they ever pro- 
duce. Instances have been given. Any number more can 
be produced. Our experience, which has been almost 
world-wide, has ever shown that not only does the criminal 
become honest, the drunkard sober, the harlot chaste, but 
that poverty of the most abject and helpless type vanishes 
away. 

Our fourth credential is that our Organization alone of 
England's religious bodies is founded upon the principle of 
implicit obedience. 

For Discipline I can ;^.:aswer. The Salvation Army, largely 
recruited from among 'zh.® poorest of the poor, is often re- 
proached by its enemies on account of the severity of its 
rule. It is the only religious body founded in our time that 
is based upon the principle of voluntary subjection to an 
absolute authority. No one is bound to remain in the Ar. 
my a day longer than he pleases. While he remains there 



300 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

he is bound by the conditions of the Service. The first con- 
dition of that Service is implicit, unquestioning obedience. 
The Salvationist is taught to obey as is the soldier on the 
field of battle 

From the time when the Salvation Army began to ac- 
quire strength and to grow from the grain of mustard seed 
until now, when its branches overshadow the whole earth, 
we have been constantly warned against the evils which this 
autocratic system would entail. Especially were we told that 
in a democratic age the people would never stand the estab- 
lishment of what was described as a spiritual despotism. 
It was contrary to the spirit of the times, it would be a stone 
of stumbling and a rock of offence to the masses to whom 
we appeal, and so forth and so forth 

But what has been the answer of accomplished facts to 
these predictions ot theorists? Despite the alleged unpop- 
ularity of our discipline, perhaps because of the rigor of 
military authority upon which we have insisted, the Salva- 
tion Army has grown from year to year with a rapidity to 
which nothing in modern Christendom affords any parallel 
It is only twenty-five years since it was born. It is now 
the largest Home and Foreign Missionary Society in the 
Protestant world. We have nearly 10,000 officers under 
our orders, a number increasing every day, every one of 
whom has taken service on the express condition that he or 
she will obey without questioning or gainsaying the orders 
from Headquarters. Of these 4,600 are in Great Britain 
The greatest number outside these islands, in any one 
country, are in the American Republic, where we have 
1,018 officers, and democratic Australia, where we have 
800. 

Nor IS the submission to our discipline a mere paper 
loyalty. These officers are in the field, constantly exposed 
to privation and ill-treatment of all kinds. A telegram 
from me will send any of them to the uttermost parts 



AND THE WAY OUT 801 

of the earth, will transfer them from the Slums of London 
to San Francisco, or despatch them to assist in opening 
missions in Holland, Zululand, Sweden, or South Am c-rica. 
So far from resenting the exercise of authority, the Salvation 
Army rejoices to' recognize it as one great secret of its suc- 
cess, a pillar of strength upon which all its soldiers can rely, 
a principle which stamps it as being different from all other 
religious organizations founded in our day. 

With ten thousand officers, trained to obey, and trained 
equally to command, I do not feel that the organization 
even of the disorganized, sweated, hopeless, drink-sodden 
denizens of darkest England is impossible. It is possi- 
ble, because it has already been accomplished in the case 
of thousands who, before they were saved, were even such 
as those whose evil lot we are now attempting to deal with. 

Our fifth credential is the extent and universality of the 
Army. What a mighty agency for working out the Scheme 
is found in the Army in this respect. This will be apparent 
when we consider that it has already stretched itself through 
over thirty different Countries and Colonies, with a perma- 
nent location in something like 4,000 different places, that 
it has either soldiers or friends sufficiently in sympathy with 
it to render assistance in almost every considerable popu- 
lation in the civilized world, and in much of the uncivilized, 
that it has nearly 10,000 separated officers whose training 
and leisure and history qualify them to become its enthusi- 
astic and earnest co-workers. In fact, our whole people 
will hail it as the missing link in the great scheme for the 
regeneration of mankind, enabling them to act out those im- 
pulses of their hearts which are ever prompting them to do 
good to the bodies as well as to the souls of men. 

Take the meetings. With few exceptions, every one of 
these four thousand centres has a Hall in which, on every 
evening in the week and from early morning until nearly 
midnight on every Sabbath, services are being held; that 



303 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

nearly every service held indoors is preceded by one out of 
doors, the special purport of every one being the saving of 
these wretched crowds. Indeed, when this Scheme is per- 
fected and fairly at work, every meeting and every proces- 
sion will be looked upon as an advertisement of the earthly 
as well as the heavenly conditions of happiness. And every 
Barracks and Officer's quarters will become a centre where 
poor sinful, suffering men and women may find sympathy, 
counsel and practical assistance in every sorrow that can 
possibly come upon them, and ev^ery Officer throughout our 
ranks in every quarter of the globe will become a co-worker. 

See how useful our people will be in the gathering of 
this class. They are in touch with them. They live in the 
same street, work in the same shops and factories, and 
come in contact with them at every turn and corner of life. 
If they don't live amongst them, they formerly did. They 
know where to find them; they are their old chums, pot- 
house companions, and pals in crime and mischief. This 
class is the perpetual difficulty of a Salvationist's life. He 
feels that there is no help for them in the conditions in 
which they are at present found. They are so hopelessly 
weak, and their temptations are so terribly strong, that they 
go down before them. The Salvationist feels this when he 
attacks them in the tap-rooms, in the low lodging houses, 
or in their own desolate homes. Hence, with many, the 
Crusader has lost all heart. He has tried them so often. 
But this Scheme of taking them right away from their old 
haunts and temptations will put new life into him and he 
will gather up the poor social wrecks wholesale, pass them 
along, and then go and hunt for more. 

Then see how useful this army of officers and soldiers 
will be for the regeneration of this festering mass of vice a 
crime when it is, so to speak, in our possession. 

All the thousands of drunkards and harlots, and blasphe- 
mers and idlers have to be made over again, to be renewed 



AND THE WAY OVf 3tJS 

in the spirit of their minds, that is — made good. What a 
host of moral workers will be required to accomplish such 
a gigantic transformation. In the Army we have a few 
thousands ready, anyway, we have as many as can be used 
at the outset, and the Scheme itself will go on manufactur- 
ing more. Look at the qualifications of these warriors for 
the work. 

They understand their pupils — having been dug out of 
the same pit. Set a rogue to catch a rogue, they say, 
that is, we suppose, a reformed rogue. Anyway, it is 
so with us. These rough-and-ready warriors will work 
shoulder to shoulder with them in the same manual 
employment. They will engage in the task for love. This 
is a substantial part of their religion, the moving instinct 
of the new heavenly nature that has come upon them. 
They want to spend their lives in doing good. Here 
will be an opportunity. 

Then see how useful these Soldiers will be for distribu- 
tion ! Every Salvation Officer and Soldier in every one 
of these 4,000 centres, scattered through these thirty odd 
countries and colonies, with all their correspondents and 
friends and comrades living elsewhere, will be ever on 
the watch-tower looking out for homes and employments 
vhere these rescued men and women can be fixed up to 
advantage, nursed into moral vigor, picked up again on 
stumbling, and watched over generally until able to 
travel the rough and slippery paths of life alone. 

I am, therefore, not without warrant for my confidence 
in the possibility of doing great things, if the problem so 
long deemed hopeless be approached with intelligence 
and determination on a scale corresponding to the magni- 
tude of the evil with which we have to cope. 

Section 2. — How Much Will it Cost? 

A considerable amount of money will be required to 
fairly launch this Scheme, and some income may be 
necessary to sustain it for a season, but, once fairly afloat, 



304 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

we think there is good reason to believe that in all its 
branches it will be self-supporting, unless its area of opera- 
tion is largely extended, on which we fully rely. Of 
course the cost of the effort must depend very much upon 
its magnitude. If anything is to be done commensurate 
with the extent of the evil, it will necessarily require a 
proportionate outlay. If it is only the drainage of a 
garden that is undertaken, a few pounds will meet the 
cost, but if it is a great dismal swamp of many miles in 
area, harboring all manner of vermin, and breeding all 
kinds of deadly malaria, that has to be reclaimed and culti- 
vated, a very different sum will not only be found neces- 
sary, but be deemed an economic investment. 

Seeing that the country pays out something like Ten 
Millions per annum in Poor Law and Charitable Relief 
without securing any real abatement of the evil, I cannot 
doubt that the public will hasten to supply one-tenth of 
that sum. If you reckon that of the submerged tenth we 
have one million to deal with, this will only be one pound 
per head for each of those whom it is sought to benefit, 
or say 

ONE MILLION STERLING 

to give the present Scheme a fair chance of getting into 
practical operation. 

According to the amount furnished, must necessarily be 
the extent of our operations. We have carefully calculated 
that with one hundred thousand pounds the scheme can 
be successfully set in motion, and that it can be kept 
going on an annual income of ;^3o,ooo which is about 
there and a-quarter per cent, on the balance of the million 
sterling, for which I ask as an earnest that the public 
intend to put its hand to this business with serious resolu- 
tion ; and our judgment is based, not on any mere 
imaginings, but upon the actual result of the experiments 
already made. Still it must be remembered that so vast 



AND THE WAY OUT 305 

and desirable an end cannot be even practically contem- 
plated without a proportionate financial outlay. 

Supposing, however, by the subscription of this amount 
the undertaking is fairly set afloat. The question may be 
asked, "What further funds will be required for its efficient 
maintenance?" This question we proceed to answer. 
Let us look at the three Colonies apart, and then at some 
of the circumstances which apply to the whole. To 
begin with, there is 

THE FINANCIAL ASPECT OF THE CITY COLONY. 

Here there will be, of course, a considerable outla}^ 
required for the purchasing and fitting up of property, 
the acquisition of machinery, furniture, tools and the 
necessary plant for carrying forward all these varied 
operations. These once acquired, no further outlay will 
be needed except for the necessary reparations. 

The Homes for the Destitute will be nearly if not quite 
self-sustaining. The Superior Homes for both Single and 
Married people will not only pay for themselves but return 
some interest on the amount invested which would be 
devoted to the furtherance of other parts of the Scheme. 

The Refuges for Fallen Girls would require considerable 
funds to keep them going. But the public has never been 
slow to practically express its sympathy with this class of 
work. 

The Criminal Homes and Prison Gate Operations would 
require continual help but not a very great deal. Then 
the work in the slums is somewhat expensive. The 
eighty young women at present engaged in it cost on an 
average 12s. per week each for personal maintenance in- 
clusive of clothes and other little matters and there are 
expenses for Halls and some little relief which cannot in 
any way be avoided, bringing our present annual Slum 
outlay to over ;^4,ooo. But the poor people amongst 
20 



306 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

whom they work notwithstanding their extreme poverty 
are already contributing over ;^i,ooo per annum towards 
this amount, which income will increase, Still as by this 
Scheme we propose to add at once a hundred to the 
number already engaged, money will be required to keep 
this department going. 

The Inebriate Home I calculate will maintain itself. 
All its inmates will have to engage in some kind of 
remunerative labor, and we calculate, in addition, upon 
receiving money with a considerable number of those 
availing themselves of its benefits. But to practically 
assist the half-million slaves of the cup we must have 
money not only to launch out but to keep our operations 
going. 

The Food Depots, once fitted up, pay their own working 
expenses. 

The Emigration, Advice, and Inquiry Bureaus must 
maintain themselves or nearly so. 

The Labor Shops, Anti-Sweating, and other similar 
operations will, without question, require money to make 
ends meet. 

But on the whole, a very small sum of money, in propor- 
tion to the immense amount of work done, will enable us 
to accomplish a vast deal of good, 

THE FARM COLONY FROM A FINANCIAL POINT OF VIEW. 

Let us now turn to the Farm Colony, and consider it 
from a monetary standpoint. Here also a certain amount 
of money will have to be expended at the outset , some 
of the chief items of which will be the purchase of land, 
the erection of buildings, the supply of stock, and the 
production of first crops. There is an abundance of land 
in the market, at the present time, at very low prices. 

It is rather important for the initial experiment that an 
estate should be obtained not too far from London, with 
land suitable for ixomediate cultivation. Such an estate 



AND THE WAY OUT 307 

would beyond question be expensive. After a time, I 
have no doubt, we shall be able to deal with land of 
almost any quality (and that in almost any part of the 
country), in consequence of the superabundance of labor 
we shall possess. There is no question if the scheme 
goes forward, but that estates will be required in connec- 
tion with all our large towns and cities. I am not without 
hope that a sufficient quantity of land will be given, or, 
in any way, sold to us on very favorable terms. 

When acquired and stocked, it is calculated that this 
land, if cultivated by spade husbandry, will support at 
least two persons per acre. The ordinary reckoning of 
those who have had experience with allotments gives five 
persons to three acres. But, even supposing that this 
calculation is a little too sanguine, we can still reckon a 
farm of 500 acres supporting, without any outside assist- 
ance, say 750 persons But, in this Scheme, we should 
have many advantages not possessed by the simple peasant, 
such as those resulting from combination, market garden- 
ing, and the other forms of cultivation already referred to, 
and thus we should want to place two or three times this 
number on that quantity of land. 

By a combination of City and Town Colonies, there will 
be a market for at least a large portion of the products. 

At the rate of our present consumption in the London 
Food Depots and Homes for the Destitute alone, at least 
50 acres would be required for potatoes alone, and every 
additional Colonist would be an additional consumer. 

There will be no rent to pay, as it is proposed to buy 
the land right out. In the event of a great rush being 
made for the allotments spoken of, further land might be 
rented, with option of purchase. 

Of course the continuous change of laborers would tell 
against the profitableness of the undertaking. But this 
would be proportionally beneficial to the country, seeing 



308 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

that everyone who passes through the institution with 
credit makes one less in the helpless crowd. 

The rent of Cottages and Allotments would constitute a 
small return, and at least pay interest on the money 
invested in them. 

The labor spent upon the Colony would be constantly 
increasing its money value. Cottages would be built, 
orchards planted, land enriched, factories run up, ware 
houses erected, while other improvements would be con- 
tinually going forward. All the labor and a large part of 
the material would be provided by the Colonists them- 
selves. 

It may be suggested that the workers would have to be 
maintained during the progress of these erections and 
manufactures, the cost of which would in itself amount 
to a considerable sum. True, and for this the first outlay 
would be required. But after this every cottage erected, 
every road made, in short every structure and improve- 
ment, would be a means of carrying forward the regenerat- 
ing process, and in many cases it is expected will become 
a source of income. 

As the Scheme progresses, it is not irrational to expect 
that Government, or some of the varied Local Authorities, 
will assist in the working out of a plan which, in so 
marked a manner, will relieve the rates and taxes of the 
country. 

The salaries of Officers would be in keeping with those 
given in the Salvation Army, which are very low. 

No wages would be paid to Colonists, as has been 
described, beyond pocket money and a trifle for extra 
service. 

Although no permanent invalid would be knowingly 
taken into the Colonies, it is fair to assume that there will 
be a certain number, and also a considerable residuum of 
naturally indolent, half-witted people, incapable of im- 



AND THE WAY OUT 309 

provement, left upon our hands. Still, it is thought that 
with reformed habits, variety of employment, and careful 
oversight, sach may be made to earn their own mainte- 
nance, at least, especially when it is borne in mind that 
unless they work, so far as they have ability, they cannot 
remain in the Colony. 

If the Household Salvage Scheme which has been 
explained in Chapter II proves the success we anticipate 
there can be no question that great financial assistance 
will be rendered by it to the entire scheme when once the 
whole thing has been brought into working order. 

THE FINANCIAL ASPECT OF THE OVER-SEA COLONY. 

Let us now turn to the Over-Sea Colony, and regard it 
also from the financial standpoint. Here we must occupy 
ourselves chiefly with the preliminary outlay, as we could 
not for a moment contemplate having to find money to 
assist it when once fairly established. The initial expense 
will, no doubt, be somewhat heavy, but not beyond a 
reasonable amount. 

The land required would probably be given, whether we 
go to Africa, Canada, or elsewhere ; anyway, it would be 
acquired on such easy terms as would be a near approach 
to a gift. 

A considerable sum would certainly be necessary for 
effecting the first settlements. There would be temporary 
buildings to erect, land to break up and crop ; stock, farm 
implements and furniture to purchase, and other similar 
expenses. But this would not be undertaken on a large 
scale, as we should rely, to some extent, on the succes- 
sive batches of Colonists more or less providing for them- 
selves, and in this respect working out their own salvation. 
The amount advanced for passages, outfit money and 
settlement would be repaid by instalments by the Colo- 
nists, which would in turn serve to pay the cost of convey- 
ing others to the same destination. 



310 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Passage and outfit money would, no doubt, continue to 
be some difficulty. ^£8 per head, say, to Africa — j£^ 
passage money, and ;^3 for the journey across the country 
— is a large sum when a considerable number are involved ; 
and I am afraid no Colony would be reached at a much 
lower rate. But I am not without hope that the Govern- 
ment might assist us in this direction. 

Taking up the entire question, that is, of the three 
Colonies, we are satisfied that the sum named will suffice 
to set to work an agency which will probably rescue from 
lives of degradation and immorality an immense number 
of people, and that an income of something like ^^30,000 
will keep it afloat. But supposing that a much larger 
amount should be required, by operations greatly in 
advance of those here spoken of, which we think exceed- 
ingly probable, it is not unreasonable to expect that it will 
be forthcoming, seeing that caring for the poor is not only 
a duty of universal obligation a root principle of all 
religion, but an instinct of humanity not likely to be 
abolished in our time. We are not opposed to charity 
as such, but to the mode of its administration, which, 
instead of permanently relieving, only demoralizes and 
plunges the recipients lower in the mire, and so defeats 
its own purpose. 

"What ! ' I think I hear some say, "a million sterling! 
how can any man out of Bedlam dream of raising such 
a sum?" Stop a little! A million may be a great deal to 
pay for a diamond or a palace, but it is a mere trifle com- 
pared with the sums which Britain lavishes whenever 
Britons are in need of deliverance if they happen to be 
imprisoned abroad. The King of Ashantee had captive 
some British subjects — not even of English birth — in 1869. 
John Bull despatched General Wolseley with the pick of 
the British army, who smashed Koffee Kalkallee, liberated 
the captives, and burnt Coomassie, and never winced 



AND THE WAY OUT 811 

when the bill came In for ^750,000. But that was a 
mere trifle. When King Theodore, of Abyssinia, made 
captives of a couple of British representatives, Lord 
Napier VN^as despatched to rescue. He marched his army 
to Magdala, brought back the prisoners, and left King 
Theodore dead. The cost of that expedition was over 
nine millions sterling. The Egyptian Campaign, that 
smashed Arabi, cost nearly five millions. The rush to 
Khartoum, that arrived too late to rescue General Gordon, 
cost at least as much. The Afghan war cost twenty-one 
millions sterling. Who dares then to say that Britain 
cannot provide a million sterling to rescue not one or two 
captives, but a million, whose lot is quite as doleful as 
that of the prisoners of savage kings, but who are to be 
found, not in the land of the Soudan, or in the swamps 
of Ashantee, or in the Mountains of the Moon, but here at 
our very doors? Don't talk to me about tJie impossibility 
of raising a million. Nothing is impossible when Britain 
is in earnest. All talk of impossibility onty means that 
you don't believe that the nation cares to enter upon a 
serious campaign against the enemy at our gates. When 
John Bull goes to the wars he does not count the cost. 
And who dare deny that the time has fully come for a 
declaration of war against the Social Evils which seem to 
shut out God from this, our world? 

Section 3. — Some Advantages Stated. 

This Scheme takes into its embrace all kinds and 
classes of men who may be in destitute circumstances, 
irrespective of their character or conduct, and charges 
itself with supplying at once their temporal needs , and 
then aims at placing them in a permanent position of com- 
parative comfort, the only stipulation made being a will- 
ingness to work and to conform to discipline on the part 
of those receiving its benefit. 



313 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

While at the commencement, we must impose some 
limits with respect to age and sickness, we hope, when 
fairly at work, to be able to dispense with even these 
restrictions, and to receive any unfortunate individual who 
has only his misery to recommend him and an honest 
desire to get out of it. 

It will be seen that, in this respect, the Scheme stands 
head and shoulders above any plan that has ever been 
mooted before, seeing that nearly all the other charitable 
and remedial proposals more or less confess their utter 
inability to benefit any but what they term the "decent" 
working man. 

This Scheme seeks out by all manner of agencies, 
marvelously adapted for the task, the classes whose 
welfare it contemplates, and, by varied measures and 
motives adapted to their circumstances, compels them to 
accept its benefits. 

Our Plan contemplates nothing short of revolutionizing 
the character of those whose faults are the reason for their 
destitution. We have seen that with fully fifty per cent, 
of these, their own evil conduct is the cause of their 
wretchedness. To stop short with them of anything less 
than a real change of heart will be to invite and ensure 
failure. But this we are confident of effecting — anyway, 
in the great majority of cases — by reasonings and persua- 
sions, concerning both earthly and heavenly advantages, 
by the power of man, and by the power of God. 

By this Scheme any man, no matter how deeply he may 
have fallen in self-respect and esteem of all about him, 
may re-enter life afresh, with the prospect of re-establish- 
ing his character when lost, or perhaps of establishing a 
character for the first time, and so obtaining an introduc- 
tion to decent employment, and a claim for admission into 
Society as a good citizen. While many of this crowd 



AND THE WAY OUT 313 

are absolutely without a decent friend, others will have, 
on that higher level of respectability they once occupied, 
some relative, or friend, or employer, who occasionally 
thinks of them, and who, if only satisfied that a real 
change has taken place in the prodigal, will not only be 
willing, but delighted to help them once more. 

By this Scheme, we believe we shall be able to teach 
habits of econon^y, household management, thrift, and the 
like. There are numbers of men who, although suffering 
the direst pangs of poverty, know little or nothing about 
the value of money, or the prudent use of it ; and there 
are hundreds of poor women who do not know what a 
decently managed home is, and who could not make one 
if they had the most ample means and tried ever so hard 
to accomplish it, having never seen anything but dirt, 
disorder and misery in their domestic history. They 
could not cook a dinner or prepare a meal decently if 
their lives were dependent on it, never having had a 
chance of learning how to do it. But by this Scheme we 
hope to teach these things. 

By this Plan, habits of cleanliness will be created, and 
some knowledge of sanitary questions in general will be 
imparted. 

This Scheme changes the circumstances of those whose 
poverty is caused by their misfortune. 

To begin with, it finds work for the unemployed. This 
is the chief need. The great problem that has for ages 
been puzzling the brains of the political economist and 
philanthropist has been — "How can we find these people 
work?" No matter what other helps are discovered, 
without work there is no real ground for hope. Charity 
and all the other ten thousand devices are only temporary 
expedients, altogether insufficient to meet the necessity. 
Work, apart from the fact that it is God's method of 
supplying the wants of man's composite nature, is an 



3U IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

essential to his well-being in every way — and on this Plan 
there is work, honorable work — none of your demoralizing 
stone-breaking, or oakum -picking business, which tantal- 
izes and insults poverty. Every worker will feel that he 
is not only occupied for his own benefit, but that any 
advantage reaped over and above that which he gains him- 
self will serve to lift some other poor wretch out of the 
gutter. 

There would be work within the capacity of all. Every 
gift could be employed. For instance, take five persons 
on the Farm — a baker, a tailor, a shoemaker, a cook and 
an agriculturist. The baker would make bread for all, 
the tailor garments for all, the shoemaker shoes for all, 
the cook would cook for all, and the agriculturalist dig for 
all. Those who know anything which would be useful to 
the inhabitants of the Colony will be set to do it, and 
those who are ignorant of any trade or profession will be 
taught one. 

This Scheme removes the vicious and criminal classes 
out of the sphere of those temptations before which they 
have invariably fallen in the past. Our experience goes 
to show that when you have, by Divine grace, or by any 
consideration of the advantages of a good life, or the dis- 
advantages ot a bad one, produced in a man circumstanced 
as those whom we have been describing, the resolution 
to turn over a new leaf, the temptations and difficulties he 
has to encounter will ordinarily master him, and undo all 
that has been done, if he still continues to be surrounded 
by old companions and allurements to sin. 

Now, look at the force of the temptations this class has 
to fight against. What is it that leads people to do 
wrong — people of all classes, rich as well as poor? Not 
the desire to sin. They do not want to sin ; many of 
them do not know what sin is, but they have certain 
appetites or natural likings, the indulgence of which is 



AND THE WAY OUt Ut 

pleasant to them, and when the desire for their unlawfu? 
gratification is aroused, regardless of the claims of God, 
their own highest interests, or the well-being of their 
fellows, they are carried away by them ; and thus all the 
good resolutions they have made in the past come to grief. 

For instance, take the temptation which comes through 
the natural appetite, hunger. Here is a man who ha? 
been at a religious meeting, or received some good advice, 
or, perhaps, just come out of prison, with the memories 
of the hardships he has suffered fresh upon him, or the 
advice of the chaplain ringing in his ears. He has made 
up his mind to steal no more, but he has no means of 
earning a livelihood. He becomes hungry. What is he 
to do? A loaf of bread tempts him, or, more likely, a 
gold chain which he can turn into bread. An inward 
struggle commences, he tries to stick to his bargain, but 
the hunger goes on gnawing within, and it may be there 
is a wife and children hungry as well as himself; so he 
yields to the temptation, takes the chain and in turn the 
policeman takes him. ^ 

Now this man does not want to do wrong, and still less 
does he want to go to prison. In a sincere, dreamy way 
he desires to be good; and if the path were easier for 
him he would probably walk in it. 

Again, there is the appetite for drink- That man has 
no thought of sinning when he takes his first glass. Much 
less does he want to get drunk. He may have still a 
vivid recoiiection of the unpleasant consequences that 
followed his last spree, but the craving is on him ; the 
public house is there handy ; his companions press him ; 
he yields and falls, and, perhaps, falls to rise no more. 

We might amplify, but our Scheme proposes to take 
the poor slave right away from the public-houses, the 
drink and the companions that allure him to it, and 
therefore we think the chances of reformation in him are 
far greater. 



Bl(3 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Then think of the great boon this Scheme will be to 
the children, bringing them out of the slums, wretched 
hovels, and filthy surroundings in which they are being 
reared for lives of abomination of every description, into 
the fields, amongst the green trees and cottage homes, 
where they can grow up with a chance of saving both 
body and soul. 

Think again of the change this Scheme will make for 
these poor creatures from the depressing, demoralizing 
surroundings, of the unsightly, filthy quarters in which 
they are huddled together, to the pure air and sights and 
sounds of the country. There is much talk about the 
beneficial influence of pictures, music and literature upon 
the multitudes. Money, like water, is being poured 
forth to supply such attractions in Museums, People's 
Palaces, and the like, for the edification and amelioration 
of the social condition of the masses. But "'God made 
the country, man made the town,'' and if we take the 
people»to the pictures of divine manufacture, that must 
be the superior plan. 

Again the Scheme is capable of illimitable application. 

The plaister can be made as large as the wound. The 
wound is certainly a very extensive one, and it seems at 
first sight almost ridiculous for any private enterprise to 
attempt dealing with it. Three millions of people, living 
in little short of perpetual misery have to be reached and res- 
cu<3d out of this terrible condition. But it can be done, and 
this Scheme will do it, if it is allowed a fair chance. 
Not all at once? True! It will take time, but it will 
begin to tell on the festering mass straight away. Within 
a measurable distance we ought to be able to take out of 
of this black sea at least a hundred individuals a week, 
and there is no reason why this number should not go 
on increasing. 



AND THE WAY OUT 31"? 

An appreciable impression on this gulf of misery would 
be immediately made, not only for those who are rescued 
from its dark waters, but for those who are left behind 
seeing that for every hundred individuals removed, there 
is just the additional work which they performed for those 
who remain. It might not be much, but still it would 
soon count up. Supposing three carpenters are starving 
on employment which covered one-third of their time, if 
you take two away, the one will have full employment. 
But it will be for the public to fix, by their contributions, 
the extent of our operations. 

The benefits bestowed by this Scheme will be permanent 
in duration. It will be seen that this is no temporary 
expedient, such as, alas ! nearly every effort hitherto made 
on behalf of these classes has been. Relief Works, Soup 
Kitchens, Enquiries into Character, Emigration Schemes, 
of which none will avail themselves. Charity in its hundred 
forms. Casual Wards, the Union, and a hundred other 
Nostrums may serve for the hour, but they are only at 
the best, palliations. But this Scheme, I am bold to say, 
offers a substantial and permanent remedy. 

In relieving one section of the community, our plan 
involves no interference with the well-being of any other. 
(See Chapter VII Section 4, Objections. ') 

This Scheme removes the all but insuperable barrier to 
an industrious and godly life. It means not only the 
leading of these lost multitudes out of the "City of 
Destruction" into the Canaan of plenty, but the lifting of 
them up to the same level of advantage with the more 
favored of mankind for securing the salvation of their souls. 

Look at the circumstances of hundreds and thousands 
of the classes of whom we are speaking. From the cradle 
to the grave, might not their influence in the direction of 
Religious Belief be summarized in one sentence, "Atheism 
made easy. ' Let my readers imagine theirs to have been 



8i8 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

a similar lot. Is it not possible that, under such circum- 
tances, they might have entertained some serious doubts 
as to the existence of a benevolent God who would thus 
allow His creatures to starve, or that they would have 
been so preoccupied with their temporal miseries as to 
have no heart for any concern about the next life? 

Take a man, hungry and cold, who does not know 
where his next meal is coming from ; nay, who thinks it 
problematical whether it will come at all. We know his 
thoughts will be taken up entirely with the bread he needs 
for his bodyo What he wants is a dinner. The interests 
of his soul must wait. 

Take a woman with a starving family, who knows that 
as soon as Monday comes round the rent must be payed, 
or else she and her children must go into the street, and 
her little belongings be impounded. At the present 
moment she is without it. Are not her thoughts likely to 
wander in that direction if she slips into a Church or 
Mission Hall, or Salvation Army Barracks? 

I have had some experience on this subject, and have 
been making observations with respect to it ever since 
the day 1 made my first attempt to reach these starving, 
hungry crowds just over forty -five years ago — and I am 
quite satisfied that these multitudes will not be saved in 
their present circumstances. All the Clergymen, Home 
Missionaries, Tract Distributors, Sick Visitors and every- 
one else who care about the salvation of the poor, may 
make up their minds as to that. If these people are to 
believe in Jesus Christ, become the Servants of God, and 
escape the miseries of the wrath to come, they must be 
helped out of their present social miseries. They must 
be put into a position in which they can work and eat, 
and have a decent room to live and sleep in, and see 
something before them besides a long, weary, monotonous, 
grinding round of toil, and anxious care to keep them- 



AND THE WAY OUT 819 

selves and those they love barely alive, with nothing at 
the further end but the Hospital, the Union, or the Mad- 
house. If Christian Workers and Philanthropists will 
join hands to effect this change it will be accomplished, 
and the people will rise up and bless them, and be saved ; 
if they will not, the people will curse them and perish. 

Section 4. — Some Objections Met. 

Objections must be expected. They are a necessity with 
regard to any Scheme that has not yet been reduced to 
practice, and simply signify foreseen difficulties in the work- 
ing of it. We freely admit that there are abundance of diffi- 
culties in the way of working out the plan, smoothly and 
successfully, that has been laid down. But many of these, 
we imagine, will vanish when we come to close quarters, 
and the remainder will be surmounted by courage and 
patience. Should, however, this plan prove the success we 
predict, it must eventually revolutionize the condition of 
the starving sections of Society, not only in this great 
metropolis, but throughout the whole range of civilization. 
It must therefore be worthy not only of a careful considera- 
tion but of persevering trial. 

Some of these difficulties at first sight appear rather seri- 
ous. Let us look at them. 

Objection I. — // is suggested that the class of people for whose 
benefit the Scheme is designed would not avail themselves of it. 

When the feast was prepared and the invitation had 
gone forth, it is said that the starving multitudes would not 
come; that though labor was offered them in the City, or 
prepared for them on the Farm, they would prefer to rot in 
their present miseries rather than avail themselves of the 
benefit provided. 

In order to gather the opinions of those most concerned, 
we consulted one evening, by a Census in our London Shel- 



S20 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

ters, two hundred and fifty men out of work, and all suffer- 
ing severely in consequence. We furnished a set of ques- 
tions, and obtained answers from the whole. Now, it must 
be borne in mind that these men were under no obligation 
whatever to make any reply to our inquiries, much less to 
answer them favorably to our plan, of which they knew 
next to nothing. 

These two hundred and fifty men were mostly in the 
prime of life, the greater portion of them being skilled 
workmen; an examination of the return papers showing 
that out of the entire number two hundred and seven were 
able to work at their trades had they the opportunity. 

The number of trades naturally varied. There were 
some of all kinds; Engineers, Custom House Officers, 
Schoolmasters, Watch and Clockmakers, Sailors and men 
of the different branches of the Building trade; also a num- 
ber of men who have been in business on their own ac- 
count. 

The average amount of wages earned by the skilled me- 
chanics when regularly employed was 33s. per week; the 
money earned by the unskilled averaged 22s. per week. 

They could not be accounted lazy, as most of them, when 
not employed at their own trade or occupation, had proved 
their willingness to work by getting jobs at anything that 
turned up. On looking over the list we saw that one who 
had been a Custom House Officer had recently acted as 
Carpenter's Laborer; a Type-founder had been glad to work 
at Chimney Sweeping; the Schoolmaster, able to speak five 
languages, who in his prosperous days had owned a farm, 
was glad to do odd jobs as a Bricklayer's Laborer; a Gen- 
tleman's Valet, who once owned ^5 a week, had come so 
low down in the world that he was glad to act as Sandwich 
man for the magnificent sum of fourteen pence a day, and 
that, only as an occasional affair. In the list was a dyer 
and cleaner, married, with a wife and nine children, who 



AND THE WAY OUT 331 

had been able to earn 40s. a week, but had done no regu- 
lar work for three years out of the last ten. 

We put the following question to the entire number: — 
*' If you were put on a farm, and set to work at anything 
you could do, and supplied with food, lodging and cloth- 
ing, with a view to getting you on your feet, would you dc 
all you could ? " 

In response, the whole 250 replied in the affirmative, with 
one exception, and on enquiry we elicited that, being a 
sailor, the man was afraid he would not know how to do the 
work. 

On being interrogated as to their willingness to grapple 
with the hard labor on the land, they said: '' Why should 
we not? Look at us. Can any plight be more miserable 
than ours ?" 

Why not, indeed ? A glance at them would certainly 
make it impossible for any thoughtful person to assign a 
rational reason for their refusal — in rags, swarming with 
vermin, hungry, many of them living on scraps of food 
begged or earned in the most haphazard fashion, without 
sufficient clothing to cover their poor gaunt limbs, most of 
them without a shirt. They had to start out the next morn- 
ing, uncertain which way to turn to earn a crust for dinner, 
or the fourpence necessary to supply them again with the 
humble shelter they had enjoyed that night. The idea of 
their refusing employment which would supply abundantly 
the necessaries of life, and give the prospect of becoming, 
in process of time, the owner of a home, with its comforts 
and companionships, is beyond conception. There is not 
much question that this class will not only accept the 
Scheme we want to set before them, but gratefully do all in 
their power to make it a success. 

II. — Too many would come. 

This would be very probable. There would certainly be 
too many apply. But we should be under no obligation to 
21 



823 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

take more than was convenient. The larger the number of 
appHcations the wider the field for selection, and the greater 
the necessity for the enlargement of our operations. 

III. — They would run away. 

It is further objected that if they did come, the monotony 
of the life, the strangeness of the work, together with the 
absence of the excitements and amusements with which 
they had been entertained in the cities and towns, would 
render their existence unbearable. Even when left to the 
streets, there is an amount of life and action in the city 
which is very attractive. Doubtless some would run away, 
but I don't think this would be a large proportion. The 
change would be so great, and so palpably advantageous, 
that I think they would find in it ample compensation for 
the deprivation of any little pleasurable excitement they 
had left behind them in the city. For instance, there 
would be — 

A sufficiency of food. 

The friendliness and sympathy of their new associates. 
There would be abundance of companions of similar 
tastes and circumstances — not all pious. It would be 
quite another matter to going single-handed on to a 
farm, or into a melancholy family. 

Then there would be the prospect of doing well for 
themselves in the future, together with all the religious 
life, meetings, music and freedom of the Salvation 
Army. 

But what says our experience ? 

If there be one class which is the despair of the social 
reformer, it is that which is variously described, but which 
we may term the lost women of our streets. From the 
point of view of the industrial organizer, they suffer from 
almost every fault that human material can possess. They 
are, with some exceptions, untrained to labor, demoralized 
by a life of debauchery, accustomed to the wildest license, 
emancipated from all discipline but that of starvation, given 
to drink, and, for the most part, impaired in health. If, 



AND THE WAY OUT 823 

therefore, any considerable number of this class can be 
shown to be ready to submit themselves voluntarily to dis- 
cipline, to endure deprivation of drink, and to apply them- 
selves steadily to industry, then example will go a long way 
towards proving that even the worst description of humanity, 
when intelligently, thoroughly handled, is amenable to dis- 
cipline and willing to work. In our British Rescue Homes 
we receive considerably over a thousand unfortunates every 
year; while all over the world, our annual average is two 
thousand. The work has been in progress for three years 
— long enough to enable us to test very fully the capacity of 
the class in question to reform. 

With us there is no compulsion. If any girl wishes to 
remain, she remains. If she wishes to go, she goes. No 
one is detained a day or an hour longer than they choose 
to stay. Yet our experience shows that, as a rule, they do 
not run away. Much more restless and thoughtless and 
given to change, as a class, than men, the girls do not, in 
any considerable numbers, desert. The average of our 
London Homes, for the last three years, gives only 14 per 
cent, as leaving on their own account, while for the year 
i88g, only 5 per cent. And the entire number, who have 
either left or been dismissed during the year, amounts only 
to 13 per cent, on the whole. 

IV. — They wojild 7iot work. 

Of course, to such as had for years been leading idle lives, 
anything like work and exhaustive labor would be very try- 
ing and wearisome, and a little patience and coaxing might 
be required to get them into the way of it. Perhaps some 
would be hopelessly beyond salvation in this respect, and, 
until the time comes, if it ever does arrive, when the Gov- 
ernment will make it a crime for an able-bodied man to beg 
when there is an opportunity for him to engage in remun- 
erative work, this class will wander abroad preying upon a 
generous public, It will, however, only need to be knowi> 



324 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

that any man can obtain work if he wants it, for those who 
have by their liberality maintained men and women in 
idleness to cease doing so. And when it comes to this 
pass, that a man. cannot eat without working, of the two 
evils he will choose the latter, preferring labor, however 
unpleasant it may be to his tastes, to actual starvation. 

It must be borne in mind that the penalty of certain 
expulsion, which all would be given to understand would 
be strictly enforced, would have a good influence in induc- 
ing the idlest to give work a fair trial, and once at it I 
should not despair of conquering the aversion altogether 
and eventually being able to transform and pass these 
once lazy loafers as real industrious members of Society. 

Again, any who have fears on this point may be encour- 
aged, by contrasting the varied and everchanging methods 
of labor we should pursue, with the monotonous and unin- 
teresting grind of many of the ordinary employments of the 
poor, and the circumstances by which they are surrounded. 

Here again, we fall back upon our actual experience in 
reclamation work. In our Homes for saving the Lost 
Women, we have no difficulty of getting them to work. 
The idleness of this section of the social strata has been 
before referred to ; it is not for a moment denied, and 
there can be no question, as to its being the cause of much 
of their poverty and distress. But from early morn until 
the lights are out at night, all is a round of busy and, to 
a great extent, very uninteresting labor ; while the girls 
have, as a human inducement, only domestic service to 
look forward to — of which they are in no way particularly 
enamored — and yet there is no mutiny, no objection, no 
unwillingness to work ; in fact they appear well pleased 
to be kept continually at it. Here is a report that teaches 
the same lesson : 

A small Bookbinding Factory is worked in connection 
with the Rescue Homes in London. The folders and 
Stitchers are girls saved from the streets, but who, for various 



AND THE WAY OUT 325 

reasons, were found unsuitable for domestic service. The 
Factory has solved the problem of employment for some of 
the most difficult cases. Two of the girls at present 
employed there are crippled, while one is supporting herself 
and two young children. 

While learning the work they live in the Rescue Homes, 
and the few shillings they are able to earn are paid into the 
Home funds. As soon as they are able to earn 12s. a week, 
a lodging is found for them (with Salvationists, if possible), 
and they are placed entirely upon their own resources. The 
majority of girls working at this trade in London, are living 
in the family, and 6s., 7s. and 8s. a week, make an accept- 
able addition to the Home income; but our girls who are 
entirely dependent upon their own earnings must make an 
average wage of 12s. a week at least. In order that they 
may do this we are obliged to pay higher wages than other 
employers. For instance, we give from 2^d. to 3d. a 
thousand more than the trade for binding small pamphlets; 
nevertheless, after the manager, a married man, is paid, 
and a man for the superintendence of the machines, a profit 
of about ;^5oo has been made, and the work is improvifig. 
They are all paid piecework. 

Eighteen women are supporting themselves in this way 
at present, and conducting themselves most admirably. 
One of their number acts as forewoman, and conducts the 
Prayer Meeting at 12:30, the Two-minutes' Prayer after 
meals, etc. Their continuance in the factory is subject to 
their good behavior — both at home as well as at work. In 
one instance only have we had any trouble at all, and in this 
case the girl was so penitent she was forgiven, and has done 
well ever since. I think that, without exception, they are 
Salvation Soldiers, and will be found at nearly every meet- 
ing on the Sabbath, etc. The binding of Salvation Army 
publications — ''The Deliverer," ''AH the World," the 
Penny Song Books, etc., almost keep us going. A little 
outside work for the end of the month is taken, but we are 
not able to make any profit generally, it is so badly paid. 

It will be seen that this is a miniature factory, but still it 
is a factory, and worked on principles that will admit of 
illimitable extension and may, I think, be justly regarded as 
an encouragement and an exemplification of what may be ac- 



826 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

complished in endless variations. 

V. — Again, it is objected that the class whose benefit we con- 
template would not have physical ability to work on a farm, or 
in the open air. 

How, it is asked, would tailors, clerks, weavers, seam- 
stresses and the destitute people, born and reared in the 
slums and poverty-hovels of the towns and cities, do farm 
or any other work that has to do with the land ? The em- 
ployment in the open air, with exposure to every kind of 
weather which accompanies it, would, it is said, kill them 
off right away. 

We reply, that the division of labor before described 
would render it as unnecessary as it would be undesirable 
and uneconomical, to put many of these people to dig or to 
plant. Neither is it any part of our plan to do so. On our 
Scheme we have shown how each one would be appointed 
to that kind of work for which his previous knowledge and 
experience and strength best adapted him. 

Moreover, there can be no possible comparison between 
the conditions of health enjoyed by men and women wander- 
ing about homeless, sleeping in the streets or in the fever- 
haunted lodging houses, or living huddled up in a single 
room, and toiling twelve and fourteen hours in a sweater's 
den, and living in comparative comfort in well-warmed and 
ventilated houses, situated in the open country, with abun- 
dance of good, healthy food. 

Take a man or a woman out into the fresh air, give them 
proper exercise and substantial food, supply them with a 
comfortable home, cheerful companions, and a fair prospect 
of reaching a position of independence in this or some 
other land, and a complete renewal of health and careful in- 
crease of vigor will, we expect, be one of the first great bene- 
fits that will ensue. 

VI. — It is objected that we should be left with a consider c^bie 
residuum of half-witted, helpless people. 



AND THE WAY OUT S ;7 

Doubtless this would be a real difficulty, and \va 
should have to prepare for it. We certainly, at the outset, 
should have to guard against too many of this class being 
left upon our hands, although we should not be compelled 
to keep anyone. It would, however, be painful to have to 
send them back to the dreadful life from which we had res- 
cued them. Still, however, this would not be so ruinous a 
risk, looked at financially, as some would imagine. We 
could, we think, mantain them for 4s. per week, and they 
would be very weak indeed in body, and very wanting in 
mental strength, if they were not able to earn that amount 
in some one of the many forms of employment which the 
Colony would open up. 

VII. — Agai?i, it will be objected that so77ie efforts of a si7?iilar 
chai'acter have failed. For instance, co-operative enterprises in 
farming have not succeeded. 

True, but so far as I can ascertain, nothing of the charac- 
ter I am describing has ever been attempted. A large num- 
ber of Socialistic communities have been establii-ihed and 
come to grief in the United States, in Germany and else- 
where, but they have all, both in principle and practice, 
strikingly differed from what we are proposing here. Take 
one particular alone, the great bulk of these societies have 
not only been fashioned without any regard to the principles 
of Christianity, but, in the vast majority of instances, have 
been in direct opposition to them; and the only communi- 
ties based on co-operative principles that have survived the 
first few months of their existence have been based upon 
Christian truth. If not absolute successes, there have been 
some very remarkable results obtained by efforts partaking 
somewhat of the nature ot the one I am setting forth. (See 
that of Ralahine, described in appendix.) 

VIII. — It is further objected that it would be impossible to 
maintain order a,nd enforce ^ood discipline amongst this class of 
people. 



328 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

We are of just the opposite opinion. We think that 
it would — nay, we are certain of it, and we speak as those 
who have had considerable experience in dealing with the 
lower classes of Society. We have already dealt with this 
difficulty. We may say further — 

That we do not propose to commence with a thousand 
people in a wild, untamed state, either at home or abroad. 
To the Over-Sea Colony we should send none but those 
who have had a long period of training in this country. 
The bulk of those sent to the Provincial Farm would have had 
some sort of trial in the different City Establishments. We 
should only draft them on to the Estate in small numbers, 
as we were prepared to deal with them, and I am quite 
satisfied that without the legal methods of maintaining 
order that are acted upon so freely in workhouses and other 
similar institutions, we should have as perfect obedience 
to Law, as great respect for authority, and as strong a spirit 
of kindness pervading all ranks throughout the whole of the 
community as could be found in any other institution in the 
land. 

It will be borne in mind that our Army system of govern- 
ment largely prepares us, if it does not qualify us, for this 
task. Anyway, it gives us a good start. All our people are 
trained in habits of obedience, and all our Officers are edu- 
cated in the exercise of authority. The Officers through- 
out the Colony would be almost exclusively recruited from 
the ranks of the Army, and everyone of them would go to 
the work, both theoretically and practically familiar with 
those principles which are the essence of good discipline. 

Then we can argue, and that very forcibly, from the actual 
experience we have already had in dealing with this class. 
Take our experience in the Army itself. Look at the order 
of our Soldiers. Here are men and women, who have no 
temporial interest whatever at stake, receiving no remunera- 
tion often sacrificing their earthly interests by their union 



AND THE WAY OUT 329 

with us, and yet see how they fall Into line, and obey orders 
in the promptest manner, even when such orders go right in 
the teeth of their temporal interests. 

''Yes," it will be replied by some, ''this is all very excel- 
lent so far as it relates to those who are altogether of your 
own way of thinking. You can command them as you 
please, and they will obey, but what proof have you given 
of your ability to control and discipline those who are not of 
your way of thinking? 

"You can do that with your Salvationists because they 
are saved, as you call it. When men are born again you 
can do any thing with them. But unless you convert all 
the denizens of Darkest England, what chance is there that 
they will be docile to your discipline ? If they were soundly 
saved no doubt something might be done. But they are 
not saved, soundly or otherwise; they are lost. What 
reason have 370U for believing that they will be amenable to 
discipline ? " 

I admit the force of this objection; but I have an answer, 
and an answer which seems to be complete. Discipline, and 
that of the most merciless description, is enforced upon 
multitudes of these people even now. Nothing that the 
most authoritative organization of industry could devise 
in the excess of absolute power, could for a moment com- 
pare with the slavery enforced to-day in the dens of the 
sweater. It is not a choice between liberty and discipline 
that confronts these unfortunates, but between discipline 
mercilessly enforced by starvation and inspired by futile 
greed, and discipline accompanied with regular rations and 
administered solely for their own benefit. What liberty is 
there for the tailors who have to sew for sixteen to twenty 
hours a day, in a pest-hole, in order to earn ten shillings a 
week? There is no discipline so brutal as that of the 
sweater; there is no slavery so relentless as that from 
which we seek to deliver the victims. Compared with 



830 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

their normal condition of existence, the most rigorous disci- 
pline which would be needed to secure the completi suc- 
cess of any new individual organization would be an escape 
from slavery into freedom. 

You may reply, ''That it might be so, if people under- 
stood their own interest. But as a matter of fact they do 
not understand it, and that they will never have sufHcient 
far-sightedness to appreciate the advantages that are 
offered them." 

To this I answer, that here also I do not speak from 
theory. I lay before you the ascertained results of years 
of experience. More than two years ago, moved by the 
misery and despair of the unemployed, I opened the Food 
and Shelter Depots in London already described. Here 
are a large number of men every night, many of them of the 
lowest type of casuals who crawl about the streets, a certain 
proportion criminals, and about as difficult a class to man- 
age as I should think could be got together, and while there 
will be two hundred of them in a single building night after 
night, from the first opening of the doors in the evening un- 
til the last man has departed in the morning, there shall 
scarcely be a word of dissatisfaction; anyway, nothing in 
the shape of angry temper or bad language. No policemen 
are required; indeed two or three nights' experience will be 
sufficient to turn the regular frequenters of the place of 
their own free will into Officers of Order, glad not only to 
keep the regulations of the place, but to enforce its disci- 
pline upon others. 

Again, every Colonist, whether in the City or elsewhere, 
would know that those who took the interests of the Colony 
*o heart, were loyal to its authority and principles, and 
^abored industriously in promoting its interests, would be 
rewarded accordingly by promotion to positions of influence 
and authority, which would also carry with them temporal 
advantages, present and prospective. 



AND THE WAY OUT 831 

But one of our main hopes would be in the apprehension 
by the Colonists of the fact that all our efforts were put 
forth on their behalf. Every man and woman on the place 
would know that this enterprise was begun and carried on 
solely for their benefit, and that of the other members of 
their class, and that only their own good behavior and co- 
operation would ensure their reaping a personal share in such 
benefit. Still our expectations would be largely based on 
the creation of a spirit of unselfish interest in the commu- 
nity. 

IX. — Again-, it is objected that the Scheme is too vast to he 
atte77ipied by voluntary enterprise; it ought to be taken up a?id 
carried out by the Government itself. 

Perhaps so, but there is no very near probability of Gov- 
ernment undertaking it, and we are not quite sure whether 
such an attempt would prove a success if it were made. 
But seeing that neither Governments, nor society, nor indi- 
viduals have stood forward to undertake what God has made 
appear to us to be so vitally important a work, and as He 
has given us the willingness, and in many important senses 
the ability, we are prepared, if the financial help is furnished, 
to make a determined effort, not only to undertake but to 
carry it forward to a triumphant success. 

X. — // is objected that the classes we seek to benefit are too 
ignorant and depraved for Christian effort, or for effort of any 
kind, to reach and reform. 

Look at the tramps, the drunkards, the harlots, the crim- 
inals. How confirmed they are in their idle and vicious 
habits. It will be said, indeed has been already said by 
those with whom I have conversed, that I don't know them; 
which statement cannot, I think, be maintained, for if I 
don't know them, who does ? 

I admit, however, that thousands of this class are very 
far gone from every sentiment, principle and practice of 
right conduct. But I argue that these poor people canotn 



333 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

bemuch more unfavorable subjects for the work of regen- 
eration than are many of the savages and heathen tribes, in 
the conversion of whom Christians universally believe, for 
whom they beg large sums of money, and to whom they 
send their best and bravest people. 

These poor people are certainly embraced in the Divine 
plan of mercy. To their class, the Saviour especially gave 
His attention when He was on the earth, and for them He 
most certainly died on the Cross. 

Some of the best examples of Christian faith and practice, 
and some of the most successful workers for the benefit of 
mankind, have sprung from this class, of which we have 
instances recorded in the Bible, and any number in the his- 
tory of the Church and of the Salvation Army. 

It may be objected that while this Scheme would 
undoubtedly assist one class of the community by making 
steady, industrious workmen, it must thereby injure another 
class by introducing so many new hands into the labor mar- 
ket, already so seriously overstocked. 

To this we reply that there is certainly an appearance of 
force in this objection; but it has, I think, been already 
answered in the foregoing pages. Further, if the increase 
of workers, which this Scheme will certainly bring about, 
was the beginning and end of it, it would certainly present 
a somewhat serious aspect. But, even on that supposition, 
I don't see how the skilled worker could leave his brothers 
to rot in their present wretchedness, though their rescue 
should involve the sharing of a portion of his wages. 

(i) But there is no such danger, seeing that the number 
of extra hands thrown on the British Labor Market must be 
necessarily inconsiderable. 

(2) The increased production of food in our Farm and 
Colonial operations must indirectly benefit the working 
man. 



AND THE WAY OUT 



Section 5. — Recapitulation. 

I have now passed in review the leading features of the 
Scheme, which I put forward as one that is calculated to 
considerably contribute to the amelioration of the condi- 
tion of the lowest stratum of our Society. It in no way 
professes to be complete in all its details. Anyone may 
at any point lay his finger on this, that, or the other 
feature of the Scheme, and show some void that must be 
filled in if it is to work with effect. There is one thing, 
however, that can be safely said in excuse for the short- 
comings of the Scheme, and that is that if you wait until 
you get an ideally perfect plan you will have to wait until 
the Millennmm, and then you will not need it. My sug- 
gestions, crude though they may be, have, nevertheless, 
one element that will in time supply all deficiencies. 
There is life in them ; with life there is the promise 
and power of adaption to all the innumerable and varying 
circumstances of the class with which we have to deal. 
Where there is life there is infinite power of adjustment. 
This is no cast-iron Scheme, forged in a single brain, and 
then set up as a standard to which all must conform. It 
is a sturdy plant, which has its roots deep down in the 
nature and circumstances of men. Nay, I believe in the 
very heart of God Himself. It has already grown much, 
and will, if duly nurtured and tended, grow still further, 
until from it, as from the grain and mustard-seed in the 
parable, there shall spring up a great tree whose branches 
shall overshadow all the earth. 

Once more let me say, I claim no patent rights in any 
part of this Scheme. Indeed, I do not know what in it 
is original and what is not. Since formulating some of 
the plans, which I had thought were new under the sun, I 
have discovered that they have been already tried in 



334 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

different parts of the world, and that with great promise. 
It may be so with others, and in this I rejoice. I plead 
for no exclusiveness. The question is much too serious 
for such fooling as that. Here are millions of our fellow- 
creatures perishing amidst the breakers of the sea of life, 
dashed 'to pieces on sharp rocks, sucked under by eddying 
whirlpools, suffocated even when they think they have 
reached land, by treacherous quicksands ; to save them 
from this imminent destruction I suggest that these things 
should be done If you have any better plan than mine for 
effecting this purpose, in God's name bring it to the light 
and get it carried out quickly. If you have not, then lend me 
a hand with mine, as I would be only too glad to lend you 
a hand with yours if it had in it greater promise of suc- 
cessful action than mine. 

In a Scheme for the working out of social salvation 
the great, the only, test that is worth anything is the 
success with which they attain the object with which they 
are devised. An ugly old tub of a boat that will land a 
shipwrecked sailor safe on the beach is worth more to 
him than the finest yacht that ever left a slip-way incapa- 
ble of effecting the same object. The ^superfine votaries 
of culture may recoil in disgust from the rough-and-ready 
suggestions which I have made for dealing with the 
Sunken Tenth, but mere recoiling is no solution. If the 
cultured and the respectable and the orthodox and the 
established dignitaries and conventionalities of Society 
pass by on the other side we cannot follow their example. 

We may not be priests and Levites, but we can at least 
play the part of the Good Samaritan. The man who went 
down to Jericho and fell among thieves was probably 
a very improvident, reckless individual, who ought to have 
known better than to go roaming alone through defiles 
haunted by banditti, whom he even led into temptation 
by the careless way in which he exposed himself and his 



And the way out ^B 

goods to their avaricious gaze. It was, no doubt, largely 
his own fault that he lay there bruised and senseless, and 
ready to perish, just as it is largely the fault of those 
whom we seek to help that they lie in the helpless plight 
in which we find them. But for all that, let us bind up 
their wounds with such balm as we can procure, and, 
setting them on our ass, let us take them to our Colony, 
where they may have time to recover, and once more set 
forth on our journey of life. 

And now, having said this much by way of reply to 
some of my critics, I will recapitulate the salient features 
of the Scheme. I laid down at the beginning certain 
points to be kept in view as embodying those invariable 
laws or principles of political economy, without due 
regard to which no Scheme can hope for even a chance 
of success. Subject to these conditions, I think my 
Scheme will pass muster. It is large enough to cope with 
the evils that will confront us ; it is practicable, for it is 
already in course of application, and it is capable of indefi- 
nite expansion. But it would be better to pass the whole 
Scheme in its more salient features in review once more. 

The Scheme will seek to convey benefit to the destitute 
classes in various ways altogether apart from their entering 
the Colonies. Men and women may be very poor and in 
very great sorrow, nay, on the verge of actual starvation, 
and yet be so circumstanced as to be unable to enroll 
themselves in the Colonial ranks. To these our cheap 
Food Depots, our Advice Bureau, Labor Shops and 
other agencies will prove an unspeakable boon, and will 
be likely by such temporary assistance to help them out 
of the deep gulf in which they are struggling. Those 
who need permanent assistance will be passed on to the 
City Colony, and taken directly under our control. Here 
they will be employed as before described. Many will be 
sent off to friends work will be found for others in the 



33G IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

City or elsewhere, while the great bulk, after reasonable 
testing as to their sincerity and willingness to assist in 
their own salvation, will be sent on to the Farm Colonies, 
where the same process of reformation and training will 
be continued, and unless employment is otherwise 
obtained they will then be passed on to the Over-Sea 
Colony. 

All in circumstances of destitution, vice, or criminality 
will receive casual assistance or be taken into the Colony, 
on the sole conditions of their being anxious for deliver- 
ance, and willing to work for it, and to conform to dis- 
cipline, altogether irrespective of character, ability, reli- 
gious opinions, or anything else. 

No benefit will be conferred upon any individual except 
under extraordinary circumstances, without some return 
being made in labor. Even where relatives and friends 
supply money to the Colonists, the latter must take their 
share of work with their comrades. We shall not have 
room for a single idler throughout all our borders. 

The labor allotted to each individual will be chosen in 
view of his past employment or ability. Those who have 
any knowledge of agriculture will naturally be put to 
work on the land ; the shoemaker will make shoes, the 
weaver cloth, and so on. And when there is no knowl- 
edge of any handicraft, the aptitude of the individual and 
the necessities of the hour will suggest the sort of work 
it would be most profitable for such an one to learn. 

Work of all descriptions will be executed as far as 
possible by hand labor. The present rage for machinery 
has tended to produce much destitution by supplanting 
hand labor so exclusively that the rush has been from the 
human to the machine. We want, as far as is practicable, 
to travel back from the machine to the human. 

Each member of the colony would receive food, clothing, 
lodging, medicine and all necessary care in case of sickness. 



AND THE WAY OUT 337 

No wages would be paid, except a trifle by way of 
encouragement for good behavior and industry, or to those 
occupying positions of trust, part of which will be saved 
in view of exigencies in our Colonial Bank, and the 
remainder used for pocket money. 

The whole Scheme of the three Colonies will for all prac- 
tical purposes be regarded as one ; hence the training 
will have in view the qualification of the Colonists for 
ultimately earning their livelihood in the world altogether 
independently of our assistance, or, failing this, fit them 
for taking some permanent work within our borders either 
at home or abroad. 

Another result of this unity of the Town and Country 
Colonies will be the removal of one of the difficulties ever 
connected with the disposal of the products of unemployed 
labor. The food from the Farm would be consumed by 
the City, while many of the things manufactured in the 
City would be consumed on the Farm. 

The continued effort of all concerned in the reformation 
of these people will be to inspire and cultivate those habits, 
the want of which has been so largely the cause of the 
destitution and vice of the past. 

Strict discipline, involving careful and continuous over- 
sight, would be necessary to the maintenance of order 
amongst so large a number of people, many of whom had 
hitherto lived a wild and licentious life. Our chief 
reliance in this respect would be upon the spirit of mutual 
interest that would prevail. 

The entire Colony would probably be divided into sec- 
tions, each under the supervision of a sergeant — one of 
themselves — working side by side with them, yet respon- 
sible for the behavior of all. 

The chief officers of the Colony would be individuals 
who had given themselves to the work, not for a liveli- 
hood, but from a desire to be useful to the suffering poor. 
23 



§38 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

They would be selected at the outset from the Army, and 
that on the ground of their possessing certain capabilities 
for the position, such as knowledge of the particular kind 
of work they had to superintend, or their being good dis- 
ciplinarians and having the faculty for controlling men and 
being themselves influenced by a spirit of love. Ultimately 
the Officers, we have no doubt, would be, as is the case 
in all our other operations, men and women raised up 
from the Colonists themselves, and who will consequently 
possess some special qualifications for dealing with those 
they have to superintend. 

The Colonists will be divided into two classes : the ist, 
the class which receives no wages will consist of : 

(a) The new arrivals, whose ability, character 
and habits are as yet unknown. 

((5) The less capable in strength, mental calibre, 
or other capacity. 

(r) The indolent, and those whose conduct and 
character appeared doubtful. These would remain in 
this class, until sufficiently improved for advancement, 
or are pronounced so hopeless as to jusitfy expulsion. 
The 2nd class would have a small extra allowance, a 
part of which would be given to the workers for private 
use, and a part reserved for future contingencies, the pay- 
ment of traveling expenses, etc., From this class we 
should obtain our petty officers, send out hired laborers, 
emigrants, etc., etc. 

Such is the Scheme as I have conceived it. Intelligently 
applied, and resolutely persevered in, I cannot doubt that 
it will produce a great and salutary change in the condi- 
tion of many of the most hopeless of our fellow country- 
men. Nor is it only our fellow countrymen to whom it 
is capable of application. In its salient features^ with 
such alterations as are necessary, owing to differences of 
climate and of race, it is capable of adoption in every city 



AND THE WAY OUT 339 

in the world, for it is an attempt to restore to the masses 
of humanity that are crowded together in cities, the human 
and natural elements of life which they possessed when they 
lived in the smaller unit of the village or the market town. 
Of the extent of the need there can be no question. It is, 
perhaps, greatest in London, where the masses of popu- 
lation are denser than those of any other city ; but it exists 
equally in the chief centres of population in the new 
Englands that have sprung up beyond the sea, as well as 
in the larger cities of Europe. It is a remarkable fact 
that up to the present moment the most eager welcome 
that has been extended to this Scheme reaches us from 
Melbourne, where our officers have been compelled to 
begin operations by the pressure of public opinion and in 
compliance with the urgent entreaties of the Government 
on one side and the leaders of the working classes on the 
other, before the plan had been elaborated, or instructions 
could be sent out for their guidance. 

It is rather strange to hear of distress reaching starva- 
tion point in a city like Melbourne, the capital of a great 
new country which teems with natural wealth of every 
kind. But Melbourne, too, has its unemployed, and in 
no city in the Empire have we been more successful in 
dealing with the social problem than in the capital of 
Victoria. The Australian papers for some weeks back 
have been filled with reports of the dealings of the Salva- 
tion Army with the unemployed of Melbourne. This was 
before the great Strike. The Government of Victoria 
practically threw upon our officers the task of dealing with 
the unemployed. The subject was debated in the House 
of Assembly, and at the close of the debate a subscription 
was taken up by one of those who had been our most 
strenuous opponents, and a sum of ^400 was handed 
over to our officers to dispense in keeping the starving 
from perishing. Our people have found situations for no 



340 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

fewer than 1,776 persons, and are dispensing meals at 
the rate of 700 a day. The Government of Victoria has 
long been taking the lead in recognizing the secular uses 
of the Salvation Army. The following letter addressed by 
the Minister of the Interior to the Officer charged with 
the oversight of this part of our operations, indicates the 
estimation in which we are held : 

Government of Victoria, Chief Secretary's Office, 

Melbourne. 

July 4th, i88g. 
Superintendent Salvation Army Rescue Work. 

Sir: — In compliance with your request for a letter of 
introduction which may be of use to you in England, I 
have much pleasure in stating from reports furnished by 
Officers of my Department, I am convinced that the work 
you have been engaged on during the past six years has 
been of material advantage to the community. You have 
rescued from crime some who, but for the counsel and 
assistance rendered them, might have been a permanent 
tax upon the State, and you have restrained from further 
criminal courses others who had already suffered legal 
punishment for their misdeeds. It has given me pleasure 
to obtain from the Executive Council, authority for you 
to apprehend children found in Brothels, and to take charge 
of such children after formal committal Of the great 
value of this branch of your work there can be no question. 
It is evident that the attendance of yourself and your 
Officers at the police-courts and lock-ups has been attended 
with beneficial results, and your invitation to our largest 
jails has been highly approved by the head of the Depart- 
ment Generally speaking, I may say that your policy 
and procedure have been commended by the Chief Officers 
of the Government of this Colony, who have observed 
your work. 

I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient Servant, 
(Signed) Alfred Deakin, 



AND THE WAY OUT 341 

The Victorian Parliament has voted an annual grant to 
our funds, not as a religious endowment, but in recogni- 
tion of the service which we render in the reclamation of 
criminals, and what may be called, if I may use a word 
which has been so depraved by Continental abuse, the 
moral police of the city. Our Officer in Melbourne has 
an official position which opens to him almost every State 
institution and all the haunts of vice where it may be 
necessary for him to make his way in the search for girls 
that have been decoyed from home or who have fallen 
into evil courses. 

It is in Victoria also that a system prevails of handing 
over first offenders to the care of the Salvation Army 
Officers, placing them in recognizance to come up when 
called for. An Officer of the Army attends at every 
Police^ Court, and the Prison Brigade is always on guard 
at the jail doors when the prisoners are discharged. Our 
Officers also have free access to the prisons, where they 
can conduct services and labor with the inmates for their 
salvation. As Victoria is probably the most democratic 
of our colonies, and the one in which the working-class 
has supreme control, the extent to which it has by its 
government recognized the value of our operations is 
sufficient to indicate that we have nothing to fear from the 
opposition of the democracy. In the neighboring colony 
of New South Wales a lady has already given us a farm 
of three hundred acres fully stocked, on which to begin 
operations with a Farm Colony, and there seems some 
prospect that the Scheme will get itself into active shape 
at the other end of the world before it is set agoing in 
London. The eager welcome which has thus forced the 
initiative upon our Officers in Melbourne tends to encour- 
age the expectation that the Scheme will be regarded as 
no quack application, but will be generally taken up and 
quickly set in operation all round the world. 



34a IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

CHAPTER VIII. 
A Practical Conclusion. 

Throughout this book I have more constantly used the 
first personal pronoun than ever before in anything I 
have written. I have done this deliberately, not from 
egotism, but in order to make it more clearly manifest that 
here is a definite proposal made by an individual who is 
prepared, if the means are furnished him, to carry it out. 
At the same time I want it to be clearly understood that it 
is not my own strength, nor at my own charge, that I 
propose to embark upon this great undertaking. Unless 
God wills that I should work out the idea which I believe 
He has given me the conception, nothing can come of 
any attempt at its execution but confusion, disaster and 
disappointment. But if it be His will — and whether it 
is or not, visible and manifest tokens will soon be forth- 
coming — who is there that can stand against it? Trusting 
in Him for guidance, encouragement and support, I pro- 
pose at once to enter upon this formidable campaign. 

I do not run without being called. I do not press for- 
ward to fill this breach without being urgently pushed 
from behind. Whether or not, I am called of God, as 
well as by the agonizing cries of suffering men and women 
and children. He will make plain to me, and to us all ; 
for as Gideon looked for a sign before he, at the bidding 
of the heavenly messenger, undertook the leading of the 
chosen people against the hosts of Midian, even so do I 
look for a sign. Gideon's .sign was arbitrary. He selected 
it. He dictated his own terms ; and out of compassion 
for his halting faith, a sign was given unto him, and that 
twice over. First his fleece was dry when all the country 
round was drenched with dew ; and, secondly, his fleece 



AND THE WAY OUT 343 

was drenched with dew when all the country round 
was dry. 

The sign for which I ask to embolden me to go forward 
is single, not double. It is necessary and not arbitrary, 
and it is one which the veriest sceptic or the most cynical 
materialist will recognize as sufficient. If I am to work 
out the Scheme I have outlined in this book, I must have 
ample means for doing S3. How much would be required 
to establish this Plan of Campaign in all its fullness, 
overshadowing all the land with its branches laden with 
all manner of pleasant fruit, I cannot even venture to 
form a conception. But I have a definite idea as to how 
much would be required to set it fairly in operation. 

Why do I talk about commencing? We have already 
begun, and that with considerable effect. Our hand has 
been forced by circumstances. The mere rumor of our 
undertaking reaching the Antipodes, as before described, 
called forth such a demonstration of approval that my 
Officers there were compelled to begin action without 
waiting orders from home. In this country we have been 
working on the verge of the deadly morass for some years 
gone by, and not without marvelous effect. We have our 
Shelters, our Labor Bureau, our factory, our Inquiry 
Officers, our Rescue Homes, our Slum Sisters, and other 
kindred agencies, all in good going order. The sphere 
of these operations may be a limited one ; still, what we 
have done already is ample proof that when I propose to 
do much more I am not speaking without my book ; and 
though the sign I ask for may not be given, I shall go 
struggling forward on the same lines ; still, to seriously 
take in hand the work which I have sketched out — to estab- 
lish this triple Colony, with all its affiliated agencies, I 
must have, at least, a hundred thousand pounds. 

A hundred thousand pounds ! That is the dew on my 
fleece. It is not much considering the money that is raised 



§44 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

by my poor people for the wofk of the Salvation Army. 
The proceeds of the Self-denial Week alone last year 
brought us in ;^2o,ooo. This year it will not fall short of 
^25,000. If our poor people can do so much out of their 
poverty, I do not think I am making an extravagant 
demand when I ask that out of the millions of the wealth 
of the world I raise, as a first instalment, a hundred 
thousand pounds, and say that I cannot consider myself 
effectually called to undertake this work unless it is forth- 
coming. 

It is in no spirit of dictation or arrogance that I ask 
the sign. It is a necessity. Even Moses could not have 
taken the Children of Israel dry-shod through the Red Sea 
unless the waves had divided. That was the sign which 
marked out his duty, aided his faith and determined his 
action. The sign which I seek is somewhat similar. 
Money is not everything. It is not by any means the 
main thing. Midas, with all his millions, could no more 
do the work than he could win the battle of Waterloo, or 
hold the Pass of Thermopylae. But the millions of Midas 
are capable of accomplishing great and mighty things, if 
they be sent about doing good under the direction of 
Divine wisdom and Christ-like love. 

How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
Kingdom of heaven ! It is easier to make a hundred poor 
men sacrifice their lives than it is to induce one rich man 
to sacrifice his fortune, or even a portion of it, to a cause 
in which, in his half-hearted fashion, he seems to believe. 
When I look over the roll of men and women who have 
given up friends, parents, home prospects and everything 
they possess in order to walk bare-footed beneath a burn- 
ing sun in distant India, to live on a handful of rice, and 
die in the midst of the dark heathen for God and the 
Salvation Army, I sometimes marvel how it is that they 
should be so eager to give up all, even life itself, in a 



AND THE WAY OUT 345 

cause which has not power enough in it to induce any 
reasonable number of wealthy men to give to it the mere 
superfluities and luxuries of their existence. From those 
to whom much is given much is expected ; but, alas, alas, 
how little is realized ! It is still the widow who casts 
her all into the Lord's, treasury — the wealthy deem it a 
preposterous suggestion when we allude to the Lord's 
tithe, and count it boredom when we ask only for the 
crumbs that fall from their tables. 

Those who have followed me thus far will decide for 
themselves to what extent they ought to help me to carry 
out this Project, or whether they ought to help me at all. 
I do not think that any sectarian differences or religious 
feelings whatever ought to be imported into this question. 
Supposing you do not like my Salvationism, surely it is 
better for these miserable, wretched crowds to have food 
to eat, clothes to wear, and a home in which to lay their 
weary bones after their days toil is done, even though 
the change is accompanied by some peculiar religious 
notions and practices, than it would be for them to be 
hungry, and naked, and homeless, and possess no religion 
at all. It must be infinitely preferable that they should 
speak the truth, and be virtuous, industrious and con- 
tented, even if they do pray to God, sing Psalms, and go 
about with red jerseys, fanatically, as you call it, "seeking 
for the millennium" — than that they should remain thieves 
or harlots, with no belief in God at all, a burden to the 
Municipality, a curse to Society, and a danger to the 
State. 

That you do not like the Salvation Army, I venture to 
say, is no justification for withholding your sympathy 
and practical co-operation in carrying out a Scheme which 
promises so much blessedness to your fellow- men. You 
may not like our government, our methods, our faith. 
Your feeling towards us might perhaps be duly described 



346 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

by an observation that slipped unwittingly from the tongue 
of a somewhat celebrated leader in the evangelistic world 
some time ago, who, when asked what he thought of the 
Salvation Army, replied that "He did not like it at all, but 
he believed that God Almighty did. ' Perhaps, as an 
agency, we may not be exactly of your way of thinking, 
but that is hardly the question. Look at that dark ocean, 
full of human wrecks, writhing in anguish and despair. 
How to rescue those unfortunates is the question The 
particular character of the methods employed, the peculiar 
uniforms worn by the life-boat crew, the noises made by 
the rocket apparatus, and the mingled shoutings of the 
rescued and the rescuers, may all be contrary to your taste 
and traditions. But all these objections and antipathies, 
I submit, are as nothing compared with the delivering of 
the people out of that dark sea. 

If among my readers there be any who have the least 
conception that this scheme is put forward by me from 
any interested motives, by all means let them refuse to 
contribute even by a single penny to what would be, at 
least, one of the most shameless of shams. There may 
be those who are able to imagine that men who have 
been literally martyred in this cause have faced their death 
for the sake of the paltry coppers they collected to keep body 
and soul together. Such may possibly find no difficulty 
in persuading themselves that this is but another attempt 
to raise money to augment that mythical fortune which I, 
who never yet drew a penny beyond mere out-of-pocket 
expenses from the Salvation Army funds, am supposed to 
be accumulating. From all such I ask only the tribute 
of their abuse, assured that the worst they say of me is 
too mild to describe the infamy of my conduct if they are 
correct in this interpretation of my motives. 

There appears to me to be only two reasons that will 
justify any man, with a heart in his bosom, in refusing to 



AND THE WAY OUT Wt 

co-opefate with me in this Scheme : 

1. That he should have an honest and intelligent cotiviction 
that it cannot be carried out with any reasonable measure of 
success; or 

2. That he (^t he objector'^ is prepared with some other plan 
which will as effectually accomplish the end it contemplates. 

Let me consider the second reason first. If it be that 
you have some plan that promises more directly to accom- 
plish the deliverance of these multitudes than mine, I 
implore you at once to bring it out. Let it see the light 
of day. Let us not only hear your theory, but see the 
evidences which prove its practical character and assure 
its success. If your plan will bear investigation, I shall 
then consider you to be relieved from the obligation to 
assist me — nay, if after full consideration of your plan I 
find it better than mine, I will give up mine, turn to, and 
help you with all my might. But if you have nothing to 
offer, I demand your help in the name of those whose 
cause I plead. 

Now, then, for your first objection, which I suppose can 
be expressed in one word — "impossible." This, if well 
founded, is equally fatal to my proposals. But, in reply, 
I may say — How do you know? Have you inquired? I 
will assume that you have read the book, and duly con- 
sidered it. Surely you would not dismiss so important a 
theme without some thought. And though my arguments 
may not have sufficient weight to carry conviction, you 
must admit them to be of sufficient importance to warrant 
investigation. Will you therefore come and see for your- 
self what has been done already, or, rather, what we are 
doing to-day. Failing this, will you send some one capa- 
ble of judging on your behalf. I do not care very much 
whom you send. It is true the things of the Spirit are 
spiritually discerned, but the things ol humanity any man 
can judge, whether saint or sinner, it he only possesses 



348 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

average intelligence and ordinary bowels of compassion. 

I should, however, if I had a choice, prefer an investi- 
gator who has some practical knowledge of social econom- 
ics, and much more should I be pleased if he had spent 
some of his own time and a little of his own money in 
trying to do the work himself. After such investigation 
I am confident there could be only one result. 

There is one more plea I have to offer to those who 
might seek to excuse themselves from rendering any 
financial assistance to the Scheme. Is it ?iot worthy, at 
least, of being tried as an experime7it? Tens of thousands 
of pounds are yearly spent in "trying" for minerals, boring 
for coals, sinking for water, and I believe there are those 
who think it worth while, at an expenditure of hundreds 
of thousands of pounds, to experiment in order to test the 
possibility of making a tunnel under the sea between this 
country and France. Should these adventurers fail in 
their vaired operations, they have, at least, the satisfaction 
of knowing, though hundreds of thousands of pounds have 
been expended, that they have not been wasted, and they will 
not complain ; because they have at least attempted the 
accomplishment of that which they felt ought to be done ; 
and it must be better to attempt a duty, though we fail, 
than never attempt it at all. In this book we do think 
we have presented a sufficient reason to justify the expen- 
diture of the money and effort involved in the makmg of 
this experiment. And though the effort should not termi- 
nate in the grand success which I so confidently predict, 
and which we all must so ardently desire, still there is 
bound to be, not only the satisfaction of having attempted 
some sort of deliverance for these wretched people, but 
certain results which will amply repay every farthing 
expended in the experiment. I am now sixty-one years of 
age. The last eighteen months, during which the contin- 
ual partner of all my activities for now nearly forty years 



AND THE WAY OUT 349 

has laid in the arms of unspeakable suffering, has added 
more than many, many former ones, to the exhaustion of my 
term of service. I feel already something of the pressure 
which led the dying emperor of Germany to say, "I have 
no time to be weary. ' If I am to see the accomplishment 
in any considerable degree of these life-long hopes, I must 
be enabled to embark upon the enterprise without dela}/, 
and with the world-wide burden constantly upon me in 
connection with the universal mission of our Army I can- 
not be expected to struggle in this matter alone. 

But I trust that the upper and middle classes are at last 
being awakened out of their long slumber with regard to 
the permanent improvement of the lot of those who have 
hitherto been regarded as being forever abandoned and 
hopeless. Shame indeed upon England if, with the 
example presented to us nowadaj^s by the Emperor and 
Government of Germany, we simply shrug our shoulders, 
and pass on again to our business or our pleasure leaving 
these wretched multitudes in the gutters where Ihey have 
lain so long. No, no, no ; time is short. Let us arise 
in the name of God and humanity, axid wipe away the 
said stigma from the British banner that our horses are 
better treated than our laborers. 

It will be seen that this Scheme contains many branches. 

It is probable that some of my readers may not be able 
to endorse the plan as a whole, while heartily approving 
of some of its features ; and to the support of what they 
do not heartily approve they may not be willing to sub- 
scribe. Where this is so, we shall be glad for them to 
assist us in carrying out these portions of the undertaking 
which more especially command their sympathy and com- 
mend themselves to their judgment. For instance, one 
man may believe in the Over-Sea Colony, but feel no 
interest in the inebriate's home ; another, who may not 
care for emigration, may desire to furnish a Factory or a 



S50 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

Rescue Home; a third may wish to give us an estate, 
assist in the food and Shelter work, or the extension of 
the Slum brigade. Now, atthough I regard the Scheme as 
one and indivisible — from which you cannot take away any 
portion without impairing the prospect of the whole — it is 
quite practicable to administer the money subscribed so 
that the wishes of each donor may be carried out. Sub- 
scriptions may therefore, be sent in for the General Fund 
of the Social Scheme, or they can be devoted to any of 
the following distinct funds : 



1. The City Colony. 

2. The Farm Colony. 

3. The Over-Sea Colony. 

4. The Household Salvage 

Brigade. 

5. The Rescue Homes for 

Fallen Women. 



6. Deliverance for the 

Drunkard. 

7. The Prison Gate Bri- 

gade. 

8. The Poor Man's Bank. 

9. ThePoor Man's Lawyer 
10. Whitechapel-by- the 

Sea. 



Or any other department suggested by the fore- 
going. 

In making this appeal I have, so far, addressed myself 
chiefly to those who have money ; but money, indispen- 
sable as it is, has never been the thing most needful. 

Money is the sinews of war ; and, as society is at 
present constituted, neither carnal nor spiritual wars can 
be carried on without money. But there is something 
more necessary still. War cannot be waged without 
soldiers. A Wellington can do far more in a campaign 
than a Rothschild. More than money — a long, long way — 
I want men j and when I say men, I mean women also 
— men of experience, men of brains, men of heart, and 
men of God. 

In this great expedition, though I am starting for 
territory which is familiar enough, I am, in a certain 



AND THE WAY OUT 351 

sense, entering an unknown land. My people will be 
new at it. We have trained our soldiers to the saving of 
souls, we have taught them knee-drill, we have in- 
structed them in the art and mystery of dealing with 
the consciences and hearts of men ; and that will ever 
continue the main business of their lives. To save 
the soul, to regenerate the life, and to inspire the 
spirit with the undying love of Christ is the work to which 
all other duties must ever be strictly subordinate in the 
soldiers of the Salvation Army. But the new sphere on 
which we are entering will call for faculties other than 
those which have hitherto been cultivated, and for knowl- 
edge of a different character; and those who have these 
gifts, and who are possessed of this practical information , 
will be sorely needed. 

Already our world-wide Salvation work engrosses the 
energies of every Officer whom we command- With its 
extension we have the greatest difBculty to keep pace ; 
and, when this Scheme has to be practically grappled with, 
we shall be in greater straits than ever. True, it will find 
employment for a multitude of energies and talents which 
are now lying dormant but, nevertheless, this extension 
will tax our resources to the very utmost In view of this, 
reinforcements will be indispensable. We shall need the 
best brains, the largest experience, and the most undaun- 
ted energy of the community. 

I want Recruits, but I cannot soften the conditions in 
order to attract men to the Colors. I want no comrades 
on these terms, but those who know our rules and are 
prepared to submit to our discipline ; who are one with 
us on the great principles which determine our action, 
and whose hearts are in this great work for the ameliora- 
tion of the hard lot of the lapsed and lost. These I will 
welcome to the service. 

It may be that you cannot deliver an open-air address, 



352 IN DARKEST ENGLAND 

or conduct an indoor meeting. Public labor for souls has 
hitherto been outside your practice. In the Lord's vine- 
yard, however, are many laborers, and all are not needed 
to do the same thing. If you have a practical acquaintance 
with any of the varied operations of which I have spoken in 
this book ; if you are familiar with agriculture, under- 
stand the building trade, or have a practical knowledge 
of almost any form of manufacture, there is a place for 
you. 

We cannot offer you great pay, social position, or any 
glitter and tinsel of man's glory ; in fact, we can promise 
little more than rations, plenty of hard work, and probably 
no little of worldly scorn ; but if on the whole you believe 
you can in no other way help your Lord so well and bless 
humanity so much, you will brave the opposition of 
friends, abandon earthly prospects, trample pride under 
foot, and come out and follow Him /;/ this New Crusade, 

To you who believe in the remedy here proposed, and 
the soundness of these plans, and have the ability to 
assist me, I now confidently appeal for practical evidence 
of the faith that is in you. The responsibility is no longer 
mine alone. It is yours as much as mine. It is yours 
even more than mine if you withhold the m^eans by which 
I may carry out the Scheme. I give what I have. If 
you give what you have the work will be done. If it is 
not done, and the dark river of wretchedness rolls on, as 
wide and deep as ever, the consequences will lie at the 
door of him who holds back. 

I am only one man among my fellows, the same as you. 
The obligation to care for these lost and perishing multi- 
tudes does not rest on me any more than it does on you. 
To me has been given the idea, but to you the means by 
which it may be realized. The Plan has now been pub- 
lished to the world ; it is for you to say whether it is to 
remain barren, or whether it is to bear fruit in unnumbered 
blessings to all the children of men. 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX. 



1. The Salvation Army— A Sketch— The position of the Forces, October, 1890. 

2. Circular, Registration Forms, and Notices now issued by the Labor Bureau. 

3. Count Rumford's Bavarian Experience. 

4. The Co-operative Experiment at Ralahine. 

5. Mr. Carlyle on the Regimentation of the Out-of-Works. 
i, '« Christianity and Civilization" by the Rev. Dr. Barry,- 



APPENDIX. 



THE SALVATION ARMY. 



THE POSITION OF OUR FORCES 
October, 1890. 



o 

C/1 

ll 

o 

c/} 

Q. 
;-i 
O 
U 

The United Kingdom. ,1375 

France | ^^^ 

Switzerland f ^°° 

Sweden . 103 

United States 363 

Canada 317 

Australia — 

Victor - ■) 

South Australia I 

New South Wales . J- 270 

Tasmania I 

Queensland J 

New Zealand 65 

India ) o 

Ceylon f ^ 

Holland 40 

Denmark 33 

Norway 45 

Germany 16 

Belgium 4 

Finland 3 

The Argentine Republic 2 
South Africa and St. 
Helena 52 

Total abroad 1499 

Grand total 2874 



So 



0. 






— 


4506 


72 


352 


41 


328 
1066 
1021 



465 



903 



99 


186 


51 


419 


8 


131 
87 

132 
75 
21 


— 


12 


— 


15 


12 


162 


896 


4910 


896 


9416 



THE SUPPLY ('TRADE") DEPART. 
MENT 

At Home. Abroad. 
Buildings occupied. . . 8 22 

Ofl&cers 53 15 

Employes 207 55 

Total .260 70 

THE PROPERTY DEPARTMENT. 

PROPERTY NOW VESTED IN THE ARMY. 

The United Kingdom £377.500 

France and Switzerland. , , , . 10,000 

Sweden., 13,598 

Norway 11,676 

The United States .... .. 6,601 

Canada . 98,728 

Australia 86,251 

New Zealand ... .. 14,798 

India ... , . . 5,537 

Holland . 7,188 

Denmark. . .,.. ... .. ...... 2,340 

South Africa. , 10,401 

Total £644,618 

Value of trade effects, stock, machinery 
and goods on hand, £130,000 additional 

SOCIAL WORK OF THE ARMY. 

Rescue Homes (fallen women) 33 

Slum Posts 33 

Prison Gate Brigades . . . 10 

Food Depots. . . .... 4 

Shelters for the Destitute 5 

Inebriates' Home... i 

Factory for the Out-of-Work 1 

Labor Bureaus ..... . . 2 

OflScers and others managing those 
branches .384 



ii APPENDIX 

SALVATION AND SOCIAL REFORM LITERATURE. 

At home. Abroad. Circulation' 

Weekly Newspapers 3 24 31,000,000 

Monthly Magazines 3 12 2,400,000 



Total 6 36 33,400,000 



Total annual circulation of the above 33,400,000 

Total annual circulation of other publications 4,000,000 



Total annual circulation of Army literature 37,400,000 

The United Kingdom — 

"The War Cry" , 300,000 weekly. 

"The Young Soldier" 126,750 " 

"All the World" 50,000 monthly. 

"The Deliverer" 48,000 " 

GENERAL STATEMENTS AND STATISTICS. 



Training Garrisons for Officers (United Kingdom) 28 

" (Abroad) 28 

Large vans for Evangelizing the village (known as Cavalry forts) 7 

Homes of rest for Officers 24 

Indoor Meetings, held weekly 

Open-air Meetings held weekly(chiefly in England and colonies) 



Total Meetings held weekly. 



Accom- 
modation. 


Annual 
cost. 


400 
760 


£11,500 


240 
28,351 
21,467 


10,000 


49,818 





Number of Houses visited weekly (Great Britain onlyl 54,000 

Number of Countries and Colonies occupied 34 

Number of Languages in which Literature is issued 15 

Number of Languages in which Salvation is preached by the Officers 29 

Number of Local (Non-Commissioned Officers) and Bandsmen 23,069 

Number of Scribes and Office Employees 471 

Sum raised annually from all sources by the Army £750,000 

Average weekly reception of telegrams, 600, and letters 5,400, at the London head- 
quarters. 

Balance Sheets, duly audited by chartered accountants, are issued annually in 
connection with the International Headquarters. See the Annual Report of 1889— 
"Apostolic Warfare." 

Balance sheets are also produced quarterly at every Corps in the world, audited 
and signed by the Local Officers. Divisional Balance Sheets issued monthly and 
audited by a Special Department at Headquarters. 

Duly and independently audited Balance Sheets are also issued annually from 
every Territorial Headquarters. 

THE AUXILIARY LEAGUE. 

The Salvation Army International Auxiliary League is Composed 

I. — Of persons who, without necessarily endorsing or approving of every single 

method used by the Salvation Army, are sufficiently in sympathy with its great work of 

reclaiming drunkards, rescuing the fallen — in a word, saving the lost — as to give it 

their PRAYERS, influence and money. 



APPENDIX iii 

2.— Of persons who, although seeing eye to eye with the Army, yet are unable to 
join it, owing to being actively engaged in the work of their own denominations, or by 
reason of bad health or other infirmities, which forbid their taking any active part in 
Christi-.n work. Persons are enrolled either as Subscribing of Collecting Auxilaries. 

The League comprises persons of influence and position, members of nearly 
all denominations and many ministers. 

PAMPHLETS. 

Auxiliaries will always be supplied gratis with copies of our Annual Report and 
Balance Sheets and other pamphlets for distribution on application to Headquarters 
Some of our -Auxiliaries have materially helped us in this way by distributing our 
literature at the seaside and elsewhere, and by making arrangements for the regular 
supply of waiting rooms, hydropathics and hotels, thus helping to dispel the prejudice 
under which many persons unacquainted with the Army are found to labor. 

"All The World " is posted free regularly each month to Auxiliaries. 

For further information, and for full particulars of the work of the Salvation 
Army, apply personally or by letter to GENERAL BOOTH, or to the Financial Sec- 
retary at International Headquarters, loi Queen Victoria St., London, E. C, to whom 
also contributions should be sent. 

Checks and Postal Orders crossed "City Bank." 



THE SALVATION ARMY: A SKETCH. 

BY AN OFFICER OF SEVENTEEN YEARS' STANDING 

What is the Salvation Army? 



It is an Organization existing to effect a radical revolution in the spiritual condition 
of the enormous majority of the people of all lands. Its aim is to produce a change 
not only in the opinions, feelings and principles of these vast populations, but to alter 
the whole course of their lives, so that instead of spending their time in frivolity and 
pleasure-seeking, if not in the grossest forms of vice, they shall spend it in the service 
of their generation and in the v^orship of God. So far it has mainly operated in pro- 
fessedly Christian countries, where the overwhelming majority of the people have 
ceased, publicly, at any rate, to worship Jesus Christ, or to submit themselves in any 
way to His authority. To what extent has the Army suceeded? 

Its flag is now flying in 34 countries or colonies, where, under the leadership of 
nearly 10,000 men and women, whose lives are entirely given up to the work, it is hold- 
ing some 49,800 religious meetings every week, attended by millions of persons, who 
ten years ago would have laughed at the idea of praying. And these operations are 
but the means for further extension, as will be seen, especially when it is remembered 
Jhat the Army has its 27 weekly newspapers, of which no less than 31,000,000 copies are 
sold in the streets, public-houses, and popular resorts of the godless majority. From 
its ranks, it is therefore certain that an ever-increasing multitude of men and women 
must eventually be won. 

That all this has not amounted to the creation of a mere passing gust of feeling, may 
best be demonstrated perhaps from the fact that the Army has accumulated no less 
than 3(^775,000 worth of property, pays rentals amounting to 5^220,000 per annum for its 
meeting places, and has a total income from all sources of three-quarters of a million 
per annum. 

Now consider from whence all this has sprung. 

It is only twenty-five years since the author of this volume stood absolutely alone in 
the East of London, to endeavor to Christianize its irreligious multitudes, without the 
remotest conception in his own mind of the possibility of any such Organization being 
created. 

Consider, moreover, through what opposition the Salvation Army has ever had to 
ipake its way. 

iV 



APPENDIX V 

In each country it has to face universal prejudice,distrust,and contempt.and often 
stronger antipathy still. This opposition has generally found expression in systematic, 
Governmental, and Police restriction, followed in too many cases by imprisonment, 
and by the condemnatory outpourings of Bishops, Clergy, Pressmen and others, 
naturally followed in too many instances by the oaths and curses, the blows and insults 
of the populace. Through all this, in country after country, the Army makes its way 
to the position of universal respect, that respect, at any rate, which is shown to those 
who have conquered. 

And of what material has this conquering host been made? 

Wherever the Army goes it gathers into its meetings, in the first instance, a crowd 
of the most debased, brutal, blasphemous elements that can be found who, if permitted, 
interrupt the services, and if they see the slightest sign of police tolerance for their 
misconduct, frequently fall upon the Army officers or their property with violence. 
Yet a couple of officers face such an audience with the absolute certainty of recruiting 
out of it an Army Corps. Many thousands of those who are now most prominent in 
the ranks of the Army never knew what it was to pray before they attended its services; 
and large numbers of them had settled into a profound conviction that everything con- 
nected with religion was utterly false. It is out of such material that God has con- 
structed what is admitted to be one of the most fervid bodies of believers ever seen on 
the face of the earth. 

Many persons in looking at the progress of the Army have shown a strange want of 
discernment in talking and writing as though all this had been done in a most haphaz- 
ard fashion, or as though an individual could by the mere effort of his will produce 
such changes in the lives of others as he chose. The slightest reflection will be suffic- 
ient we are sure to convince any impartial individual that the gigantic results attained 
by the Salvation Army could only be reached by steady unaltering processes adapted 
to this end. And what are the processes by which this great Army has been made? 

1. The foundation of all the Army's success, looked at apart from its divine source 
of strength, is its continued direct attack upon those whom it seeks to bring under the 
influence of the Gospel The Salvation Army Officer, instead of standing upon some 
dignified pedestal, to describe the fallen condition of his fellow men, in the hope that 
though far from him, they may thus, by some mysterious process, come to a better life, 
goes down into the street, and from door to door, and from room to room, lays his 
hands on those who are spiritually sick, and leads them to the Almighty Healer. In 
its forms of speech and writing the Army constantly exhibits the same characteristic. 
Instead of propounding religious theories or pretending to teach a system of theology, 
it speaks much after the fashion of the old Prophet or Apostle, to each individual, 
about his or her sin and duty, thus bringing to bear upon each heart and conscience 
the light and power from heaven, by which alone the world can be transformed. 

2. And step by step, along with this human contact goes unmistakably something 
that is not human. 

The puzzlement and self-contradiction of most critics of the Army springs undoub- 
tedly from the fact that they are bound to account for its success without admitting 
that any superhuman power attends its ministry, yet day after day, and night after 
night, the wonderful facts go on multiplying. The man who last night was drunk in a 
London slum, is to-night standing up for Christ on an Army platform. The clever 
sceptic, who a few weeks ago was interrupting the speakers in Berlin, and pouring 
contempt upon their claims to a personal knowledge of the unseen Saviour, is to-day 
as thorough a believer as any of them. The poor girl, lost to shame and hope, who a 
month ago was an outcast of Paris, is to-day a modest devoted follower of Christ, 
working in a humble situation. To those who admit we are right in saying "this is the 
Lord's doing," all is simple enough, and our certainty that the dregs of Society can 
become its pmaments requires no further explanation. 



vi APPENDIX 

3. All these modern miracles would, however, have been comparatively useless 
but for the Army's system of utilizing the gifts and energy of our converts to the utter- 
most. Suppose that without any claim to Divine power the Army had succeeded in 
raising up tens of thousands of persons, formerly unknown and unseen in the com- 
munity, and made them into Singers, Speakers, Musicians and Orderlies, that would 
surely in itself have been a remarkable fact. But not only have these engaged in var- 
ious labors for the benefit of the community. They have been filled with a burning 
ambition to attain the highest possible degree of usefulness. No one can wonder that 
we expect to see the same process carried on successfully amongst our new friends of 
the Casual Ward and the Slum. And if the Army has been able to accomplish all this 
utilization of human talents for the highest purposes, in spite of an almost universally 
prevailing contrary practice amongst the Churches, what may not its Social Wing be 
expected to do, with the example of the Army before it? 

4. The maintenance of all this system has, of course, been largely due to the 
unqualified acceptance of military government and discipline. But for this, we can- 
not be blind to the fact that even in our own ranks difficulties would every day arise as 
to the exaltation to front seats of those who were formerly persecutors and injurious. 
The old feeling which would have kept Paul suspected, in the background, after his 
conversion is, unfortunately, a part ot the conservative groundwork of human nature 
that continues to exist everywhere, and which has to be overcome by rigid discipline 
in order to secure that everywhere and always, the new convert should be made the 
most of for Christ. But Army system is a great indisputable fact, so much so that 
our enemies sometimes reproach us with it That it should be possible to create an 
Army Organization, and to secure faithful execution of duty daily, is indeed a wonder, 
but a wonder accomplished, just as completely amongst the Republicans of America 
and France, as amongst the militarily trained Germans, or the subjects of the British 
monarchy It is notorious that we can send an officer from London, possessed of no 
extraordinary ability, to take command of any corps in the world, with a certainty that 
he will find soldiers eager to do his bidding, and without a thought of disputing his 
commands so long as he continues faithful to the orders and regulations under which 
his men are enlisted. 

5. But those show a curious ignorance who set down our successes to this disci- 
pline, as though it were something of the prison order, although enforced without any 
of the power lying either behind the prison warder or the Catholic priest. On the 
contrary, wherever the discipline of the Army has been endangered, and its regular 
success for a time interrupted, ithas'been through an attempt to enforce it without 
enough of that joyous, cheerful spirit of love which is its main spring. Nobody can 
become acquainted with our soldiers in any land, without being almost immediately 
struck with their extraordinary gladness, and this joy is in itself one of the most infec- 
tious and influential elements of the Army's success. But if this be so, amid the com- 
paratively well-to-do, judge of what its results are likely to be amongst the poorest and 
most wretched ! To those who have never known bright days, the mere sight of a 
happy face is, as it were, a revelation and inspiration in one. 

6. But the Army's success does not come with magical rapidity; it depends, like 
that of all real work, upon infinite perseverance. 

To say nothing of the perseverance of the officer who has made the saving of men 
his life work, and who, occupied and absorbed with this great pursuit, may naturally 
enough be expected to remain faithful, there are multitudes of our Soldiers who, after 
a hard day's toil for their daily bread, have but a few hours of leisure, but devote it 
ungrudgingly to the service of the War. Again and again, when the remains of some 
Soldier are laid to rest, amid the almost universal respect of a town, which once knew 
him only as an evil-doer, we hear it said that this man, since the date of his conversion, 
from five to ten years ago, has seldom been absent from his post, and never without 



APPENDIX vii 

good reason for it. His duty may have been comparatively insignificant, ''only a 
door-keeper, only a War Cry seller," yet Sunday after Sunday, evening after evening, 
he would be present, no matter who the commanding officer might be, to do his part, 
bearing with the unruly, breathing hope into the distressed, and showing anwavering 
faithfulness to all. 

The continuance of these processes of mercy depends largely upon leadership, 
and the creation and maintenance of this leadership has been one of the marvels of 
the Movement We have men to-day looked up to and reverenced over wide areas of 
country, arousing multitudes to the most devoted service, who a few years ago were 
champions of iniquity, notorious in nearly every form of vice, and some of them ring- 
leadeis in violent opposition to the Army. We have a right to believe that on the same 
lines God is going to raise up just such leaders without measure and without end 

Beneath, behind and pervading all the successes of the Salvation Army is a 
force against which the world may sneer, but without which the world s miseries can- 
not be removed, the force of that Divine love which breathed on Calvary, and which 
God is able to communicate by His spirit to human hearts to-day. 

It is pitiful to see intelligent men attempting to account, without the admission 
of this great fact, for the self-sacrifice and success of Salvation Officers and Soldiers. 
If those who wish to understand the Army would only take the trouble to spend as 
much as twenty-four hours with its people, how different in almost every instance 
would be the conclusions arrived at. Half-an-hour spent in the rooms inhabited by 
many of our officers would be sufficient to convince, even a well-to-do working man, 
that life could not be lived happily in such circumstances without some superhuman 
power, which alike sustains and gladdens the soul, altogether independently of 
earthly surroundings. 

The Scheme that has been propounded in this volume would, we are quite satis- 
fied, have no chance of success were it not for the fact that we have such a vast sup- 
ply of men and woman who, through the love of Christ ruling in their hearts, aie pre- 
pared to look upon a life of self-sacrificing efifort for the benefit of the vilest and 
roughest as the highest of privileges. With such a force at command, we dare to say 
that the accomplishment of this stupendous undertaking is a foregone conclusion if 
the material assistance which the Army does not possess is forthcoming. 

THE SALVATION ARMY SOCIAL REFORM WING, 
Temporary Headquarters, 36 Upper Thames Street, London, E,C. 

Objects.— The bringing together of employers and workers for their mutual ad- 
vantage. Making known the wants of each to each by providing a ready method of 
communication. 

Plan of Operation.— The opening of a Central Registry Office, which for the 
present will be located at the above address, and where registers will be 'ke^i free of 
charge wherein the wants of both employers and workers will be recorded, the 
registers being open for consultation by all interested. 

Public Waiting Rooms (for male and female), to which the unemployed may come 
for the porpose of scanning the newspapers, the insertion of advertisements for em- 
ployment in all newspapers at lowest rates. Writing tables, &c., provided for their 
use to enable them to write applications for situations or work. The receiving of 
letters (replies to applications for employment) for unemployed workers. 

The Waiting Rooms will also act as Houses-of-Call, where employers can meet 
and enter into engagements with Workers of all kinds, by appointment or otherwise, 
thus doing away with the snare that awaits many of the unemployed, who have no 
place to wait other than the Public House, which at present is almost the only 
"house-of-call" for Out-of-Work men. 



viii APPENDIX 

By making known to the public generally the wants of the unemployed by means 
of advertisements, by circulars and direct application to employers, the issue of 
labor statistics with information as to the number of unemployed who are anxious for 
work, the various trades and occupations they represent, &c., &c. 

The opening of branches of the Labor Bureau as fast as funds and opportunities 
permit, in all the large towns and centres of industry throughout Great Britain. 

In connection with the Labor Bureau we propose to deal with both skilled and un- 
skilled workers, amongst the latter forming such agencies as "Sandwich" Board Men's 
Society, Shoe Black, Carpet Beating, White-washing, Window Cleaning, Wood Chop- 
ping and other Brigades, all of which will, with many others, be put into operation as 
far as the assistance of the public (in the shape of applying for workers of all kinds) 
will afford us the opportunity 

A Domestic Servants' Agency will also be a branch of the Bureau, and a Home 
For Domestic Servants out of situation is also in contemplation. In this and other 
matters funds alone are required to commence operations. 

All communications, donations, etc., should be addressed as above, marked 
"Labor Bureau," etc. 

CENTRAL LABOR BUREAU. 

LOCAL AGENTS AND CORRESPONDENTS' DEPARTMENT. 

Dear Comrade — The enclosed letter, which has been sent to our Officers through- 
out the Field, will explain the object we have in view. Your name has been suggested 
to us as one whose heart is thoroughly in sympathy with any effort on behalf of poor 
suffering humanity We are anxious to have in connection with each of our Corps, 
and in every locality throughout the Kingdom, some sympathetic, level-headed com- 
rade, acting as our Agent or local Correspondent, to whom we could refer at all times 
for reliable information, and who would take it as work of love to regularly commu- 
nicate useful information respecting the social condition of things generally in their 
neighborhood. 

Kindly reply, giving us your views and feelings on the subject as soon as possible, 
as we are anxious to organize at once. The first business on hand is for us to get 
information of those out of work and employers requiring workers, so that we can place 
them upon our registers, and make known the wants both of employers and employes. 

We shall be glad of a communication from you, giving us some facts as to the 
condition of things in your locality, or any ideas or suggestions you would like to give, 
calculated to help us in connection with this good work. 

I may say that the Social Wing not only comprehends the labor question, but also 
prison rescue and other branches of Salvation work, dealing with broken-down 
humanity generally, so that you can see what a great blessing you may be to the work 
©f God by co-operating with us. 

Believe me to be, 
Yours affectionately for the Suffering and Lost, etc 



LOCAL AGENTS AND CORRESPONDENTS' DEPARTMENT. 

PROPOSITION FOR LOCAL AttBNT, CORRBSPONDBNT, BTC. 

Name ............ 

Address 

Occupation 

If a Soldier, what Corps? 

If not a Soldier, what Denomination? 

If spoken to on the subject, what reply have they made? 



Signed 

Corps , 

Date „„ 189 



Kindly return this as soon as possible, and we will then place ourselves in com • 
munication with the Comrade you propose for this position. 



X APPENDIX 

TO EMPLOYERS OF LABOR. 

M .'. 

We beg to bring to your notice the fact that the Salvation Army has opened at the 
above address (in connection with the Social Reform Wing), a Labor Bureau for the 
Registration of the wants of all classes of Labor, for both employer and employ^ in 
London and throughout the Kingdom, our object being to place in communication with 
each other, for mutual advantage, those who want workers and those who want work. 

Arrangements have been made at the above address for waiting rooms where em- 
ployers can see unemployed men and women, and where the latter may have accomoda- 
tion to write letters, see the advertisements in the papers, &c., &c. 

If you are in want of workers of any kind, will you kindly fill up the enclosed form 
and return it to us? We will then have the particulars entered up, and endeavor to 
have your wants supplied. All applications, I need hardly assure you, will have our 
best attention, whether they refer to work of a permanent or temporary character. 

We shall also be glad, through the information office of Labor Department, to give 
you any further information as to plans, &c., or an Officer will wait upon you to 
receive instructions for the supply of workers, if requested. 

As no charge will be made for registration of either the wants of employers or the 
wants of the unemployed, it will be obvious that a considerable outlay will be neces- 
sary to sustain these operations in active usefulness, and that therefore financial help 
will be greatly needed. 

We shall gratefully receive donations, from the smallest coin up, to help to cover 
the cost of working this department. We think it right to say that only in special cases 
shall we feel at liberty to give personal recommendations. This, however, will no 
doubt be understood, seeing that we shall have to deal with very large numbers who 
are total strangers to us. 

Please address all communications or donations as above, marked "Central Labor 
Bureau," etc. 

WE PROPOSE TO ENTER UPON A CRUSADE AGAINST " SWEATING." 
WILL YOU HELP US? 

Dear Sir*.— In connection with the Social Reform Wing a Central Labor Bureau 
has been opened, one department of which will deal especially with that class of 
labor termed "unskilled," from amongst whom are drawn Boardmen, Messengers, 
Bill Distributors, Circular Addressers, Window Cleaners, White-washers, 
Carpet Beaters, &c., &c. 

It is very important that work given to these workers and others not enumerated, 
should be taxed as little as possible by the Contractor, or those who act between the 
employer and the worker. 

In all our operations in this capacity we do not propose to make profit out of 
those we benefit; paying over the whole amount received, less, say, one-half penny in 
the shilling, or some such small sum which will go towards the expense of providing 
boards, for "sandwich" boardmen, the hire of barrows, purchase of necessary tools, 
&c., &c. 

We are very anxious to help that most needy class, the "boardmen," many of 
whom are "sweated" out of their miserable earnings; receiving often as low as 
one shilling for a day's toil. 



APPENDIX xi 

We appeal to all who sympathize with suffering humanity, especially 
Religious and Philanthropic individuals and Societies, to assist us in our efforts, by 
placing orders for the supply of Boardmen, Messengers, Bill-distributors, Window- 
cleaners and other kinds of labor in our hands. Our charge for "boardmen" will be 
2s, 2d., including boards, the placing and proper supervision of the men, &c Two 
shillings, at least, will go direct to the men; most of the hirers of boardmen pay this, 
and some even more, but often not more than one-half reaches the men. 

We shall be glad to forward you further information of our plans, or will send a 
representative to further explain, or to take orders, on receiving notice from you to 
that effect. 

Believe me to be, 

Yours faithfully, etc. 



CENTRAL LABOR BUREAU. 



to the unemployed. — male and female. 



NOTICE. 

A free registry, for all kinds of unemployed labor, has been opened at the above 
address. 

If you want work, call and make yourself and your wants known. 

Enter your name and address and wants on the Registers, or fill up form below, 
and hand it in at above address. 

Look over the advertising pages of the papers provided. Tables with pens and 
ink are provided for you to write for situations. 

If you live at a distance, fill up this form giving all particulars, or references, and 
forward to Commissioner Smith, care of the Labor Bureau. 



Name 



Address 



Kind of work wanted. 



Wages you ask. 



xii 



APPENDIX 



Name. 




Age. 




During past lo years have you 
had regular employment? 




IIow long for? 




What kind of work? 




What work can you do? 




What have you worked at at 
odd times? 





How much did you earn when 
regularly employed? 



How much did you earn when 
irregularly employed? 



Are you married? 



Is wife living? 



How many children, and ages? 



If you were put on a Farm to 
work at anything you could 
do, and were supplied with 
food, lodging and clothes, 
with a view of getting you 
on your feet, would you do 
all you could? 



HOW BEGGARY WAS ABOLISHED IN BAVARIA BY 
COUNT RUMFORD. 

Count Rumford was an American officer who served with considerable distinction 
in the Revolutionary War in that country, and afterwards settled in England. From 
thence he went to Bavaria, where he was promoted to the chief command of its army, 
and also was energetically employed in the Civil Government. Bavaria at this time 
literally swarmed with beggars, who were not only an eyesore and discredit to the 
nation but a positive injury to the State. The Count resolved upon the extinction of 
this miserable profession, and the following extracts from his writings describe the 
method by which he accomplished it: — 

" Bavaria, by the neglect of the Government, and the abuse of the kindness and 
charity of its amiable people, had become infested with beggars, with whom mingled 
vagabonds and thieves. They were to the body politic what parasites and vermin are 
to people and dwellings — breeding by the same lazy neglect." — (Page 14.) 

" In Bavaria there were laws which made provision for the poor, but they suffered 
them to fall into neglect. Beggary had become general. • — (Page 15.) 

" In short," says Count Rumford, " these detestable vermin swarmed everywhere; 
and not only their impudence and clamorous importunity were boundless, but they 
had recourse to the most diabolical arts and the most horrid crimes in the prosecution 
of their infamous trade. They exposed and tortured their own children, and those 
they stole for the purpose, to extort contributions from the charitable," 

—(Page 15.) 

" In the large towns beggary was an organized imposture, with a sort of govern- 
ment and police of its own. Each beggar had his beat, with orderly successions and 
promotions, as with other governments. There were battles to decide conflicting 
claims^ and a good beat was not unfrequently a marriage portion or a thumping 
legacy." —(Page 16.) 

" He saw that it was not enough to forbid beggary by law or to punish it by imprison- 
ment. The beggars cared for neither. The energetic Yankee Statesman attacked the 
question as he did problems in physical science. He studied beggary and beggars. 
How would he deal with one individual beggar? Send him for a month to prison to 
beg again as soon as he came out? That is no remedy. The evident course was to 
forbid him to beg, but at the same time to give him the opportunity to labor; to teach 
him to work, to encourage him to honest industry. And the wise ruler sets himself to 
provide food, comfort, and work for every beggar and vagabond in Bavaria, and did it." 

—(Page 17.) 

"Count Rumford, wise and just, sets himself to reform the whole class of beggars 
and vagabonds, and convert them into useful citizens, even to those who had sunk into 
vice and crime, 

" 'What,' he asked himself, 'is, after the necessaries of life, the first condition of 
comfort? ' Cleanliness, which animals and insects prize, which in man affects his 
moral character, and which is akin to godliness. The idea that the soul is defiled and 
depraved by what is unclean has long prevailed in all ages, Virtue never dwelt long 
with filth. Our bodres are at war with everything that defiles them. 

"His first step, after a thorough study and consideration of the subject, was to pro- 
vide in Munich, and at all necessary points, large, airy, and even elegant Houses of 
Industry, and store them with tools and materials of such manufactures as were 
most needed, and would be most useful. Each house was provided with a large dining- 
room and a cooking apparatus sufficient to furnish an economical dinner to every 

ziii 



xiv APPENDIX 

worker. Teachers were engaged for each kind of labor. Warmth, light, comfort, 
neatness and order, in and around these houses, made them attractive. The dinner 
every day was gratis, provided at first by the Government, later by the contributions 
of the citizens. Bakers brought stale bread; butchers refuse meat; citizens, their bro- 
ken victuals — all rejoicing in being freed from the nuisance of beggary. The teachers 
of handicrafts were provided by the Government. And while all this was free, 
everyone was paid the full value for his labor. You shall not beg; but here is comfort, 
food, work, pay. There was no ill-usage, no harsh language; in five years not a blow 
was given even to a child by his instructor. 

''When the preparations for this great experiment had been silently completed, 
the army — the right arm of the governing power, which had been prepared for the 
work by its own thorough reformation — was called into action in aid of the police 
and the civil magistrates. Regiments of cavalry were so disposed as to furnish every 
town with a detachment, with patrols on every highway, and squads in the villages, 
keeping the strictest order and discipline, paying the utmost deference to the civil 
authorities, and avoiding all offence to the people; instructed when the order was given 
to arrest every beggar, vagrant, and deserter, and bring them before the magistrates. 
This military police cost nothing extra to the country beyond a few cantonments, and 
this expense to the whole country was less than £3,000 a year. 

"The ist of January, 1790 — New Year's Day, from time immemorial the beggars' 
holiday, when they swarm in the streets, expecting everyone to give — the commissioned 
and non-commissioned officers of three regiments of infantry were distributed early in 
the mornmg at different points of Munich to wait for orders. Lieutenant-General 
Count Rumford assembled at his residence the chief officers of the army and principal 
magristrates of the city, and communicated to them his Plans for the campaign. Then, 
dresned in the uniform of his rank, with his orders and decorations glittering on his 
breast, setting an example to the humblest soldier, he led them into the street, and had 
scarcely reached it before a beggar approached, wished him a 'Happy New Year,' and 
waited for the expected alms. 'I went up to him,' says Count Rumford, 'and laying 
my hand gently on his shoulder, told him that henceforth begging would not be permit- 
ted in Munich; that if he was in need, assistance would be given him; and if detected 
begging again, he would be severely punished.' He was then sent to the Town Hall, 
his name and residence inscribed upon the register, and he was directed to repair to 
the Military House of Industry next morning, where he would find dinner, work and 
wages. Every officer, every magistrate, every soldier, followed the example set them; 
every beggar was arrested, and in one day a stop was put to beggars in Bavaria, It 
was banished out of the kingdom. 

"And now let us see what was the progress and success of this experiment. It 
seemed a risk to trust the raw materials of industry — wool, flax, hemp, etc, — to the 
hands of common beggars; to render a debauched and depraved class orderly and 
useful, was an arduous enterprize. Of course the greater number made bad work at 
the beginning. For months they cost more than they came to. They spoiled more 
horns than they made spoons. Employed first in the coarser and ruder manufactures, 
they were advanced as they improved, and were for some time paid more than they 
earned — paid to encourage good will, effort, and perseverance. These were worth any 
sum. The poor people saw that they were treated with more than justice — with kind- 
ness. It was very evident that it was all for their good. At first there was confusion, 
but no insubordination. They were awkward, but not insensible to kindness The 
aged, the weak, and the children were put to the easiest tasks. The younger children 
were paid simply to look on until they begged to join in the work, which seemed to 
them like play. Everything around them was made clean, quiet, orderly and pleasant. 
Living at their own homes, they came at a fixed hour in the morning. They had at 
noon a hot, nourishing dinner of soup and bread. Provisions were either contributed 



APPENDIX XV 

or bought wholesale, aud the economies of cookery were carried to the last point of 
perfection. Count Rumford has so planned the cooking apparatus that three women 
cooked a dinner for one thousand persons at a cost, though wood was used, of 4J^d. 
for fuel; and the entire cost of the dinner for 1,200 was only £1 7s. 6J^d , or about one- 
third of a penny for each person! Perfect order was kept — at work, at meals and 
everywhere. As soon as a company took its place at table, the food having been 
previously served, all repeated a short prayer. 'Perhaps,' says Count Rumford, 'I 
ought to ask pardon for mentioning so old-fashioned a custom, but I own I am old- 
fashioned enough myself to like such things.' 

"These poor people were generously paid for their labor, but something more 
than cash payment was necessary. There was needed the feeling of emulation, the 
desire to excel, the sense of honor, the love of glory. Not only pay, but rewards, 
prizes, distinctions, were given to the more deserving. Peculiar care was taken with 
the children. They were first paid simply for being present, idle lookers-on, until they 
begged with tears to be allowed to work. 'How sweet those tears were tome,' says 
Count Rumford, 'can easily be imagined,' Certain hours were spent by them in 
a school, for which teachers were provided. 

' 'The effect of these measures was very remarkable. Awkward as the people were, 
they were not stupid, and learned to work with unexpected rapidity. More wonder- 
ful was the change in their manners, appearances and the very expression of their 
countenances. Cheerfulness and gratitude replaced the gloom of misery and the 
suUenness of despair. Their hearts were softened; they were most grateful to their 
benefactors for themselves, still more for their children. These worked with their 
parents, forming little industrial groups, whose affection excited the interest of every 
visitor. Parents were happy in the industry and growing intelligence of their child- 
ren, and the children were proud of their own achievements. 

"The great experiment was a complete and triumphant success. When Count 
Rumford wrote his account of it, it had been five years in operation; it was, financially, 
a paying speculation, and had not only banished beggary, but had wrought an entire 
change in the manners, habits and very appearance of the most abandoned and de- 
graded people in the kingdom." 

— ("Count Rumford," pages 18-24.) 

"Are the poor ungrateful? Count Rumford did not find them so. When, from 
the exhaustion of his great labors, he fell dangerously ill, these poor people whom he 
had rescued from lives of shame and misery, spontaneously assembled, formed a pro- 
cession, and went in a body to the Cathedral to offer their united prayers for his 
recovery. When he was absent in Italy, and supposed to be dangerously ill in Naples, 
they set apart a certain time every day after work hours, to pray for their benefactor. 
After an absence of fifteen months, Count Rumford returned with renewed health to 
Munich, a city where there was work for everyone, and not one person whose wants 
were not provided for. When he visited the military workhouse, the reception given 
him by these poor people drew tears from the eyes of all present. A few days after 
he entertained eighteen hundred of them in the English garden — a festival at which 
300,000 of the citizens of Munich assisted." 

—("Count Rumford," pages 24-25.) 

THE CO-OPERATIVE EXPERIMENT AT RALAHINE. 

"The outrages of the 'Whitefeet,' 'Lady Clare Boys,' and 'Terry Alts' (laborers) 
far exceeded those of recent occurrence; yet no remedy but force was attempted, ex- 
cept by one Irish landlord. Mr. John Scott Vandeleur, of Ralahine, county Clare, late 
high sheriff of his county. Early in 1831 his family had been obliged to take flight, in 
charge of an armed police force, and his steward had been murdered by one of the 



xvi APPENDIX 

laborers, having been chosen by lot at a meeting held to decide who should perpe- 
trate the deed. Mr. Vandeleur came to England to seek someone who would aid him 
in organizing the laborers into an agricultural and manufacturing association, to be 
conducted on co-operative principles, and he was recommended to Mr. Craig, who, 
at great sacrifice of his position and prospects, consented to give his services. 

"No one but a man of rare zeal and courage would have attempted so apparently 
hopeless a task as that which Mr. Craig undertook. Both the men whom he had to 
manage — the Terry Alts who had murdered their master's steward — and their sur- 
roundings were as little calculated to give confidence in the success of the scheme as 
they well could be. The men spoke generally the Irish language, which Mr Craig did 
not understand, and they looked upon him with suspicion as one sent to worm out of 
them the secret cf the murder recently committed. He was consequently treated 
with coldness and worse than that. On one occasion the outline of his grave was cut 
out of the pasture near his dwelling, and he carried his life in his hand. After a time; 
however, he won the confidence of these men, rendered savage as they had been by 
ill-treatment. 

* The farm was let by Mr. Vandeleur at a fixed rent, to be paid in fixed quantities 
of farm produce, which, at the prices ruling in 1830-31, would bring in £900, which in- 
cluded interest on buildings, machinery, and live stock provided by Mr Vandeleur. 
The rent alone was £700. As the farm consisted of 618 acres, only 268 of which were 
under tillage, this rent was a very high one — a fact which was acknowledged by the 
landlord All profits after payment of rent and interest belonged to the membeis, di- 
visible at the end of the year if desired. They started a co-operative store to supply 
themselves with food and clothing, and the estate was managed by a committee of the 
members, who paid every male and female member wages for their labor in labor 
notes which were exchangeable at the store for goods or cash. Intoxicating drink or 
tobacco were prohibited. The committee each day allotted each man his duties The 
members worked the land partly as kitchen garden and fruit orchards, and partly as 
dairy farm, stall feedmg being encouraged and root crops grown for the cattle Pigs- 
poultry &c, were reared. Wages at the time were only 8d. per day for men, and sd. 
for women, and the members were paid at these rates. Yet, as they lived chiefly on 
potatoes and milk produced on the farm, which, as well as mutton and pork, were 
sold to them at extremely low prices., they saved money or rather notes. Their health 
and appearance quickly improved, so much so that, with disease raging around them, 
there was no case of death or serious illness among them while the experiment 
lasted. The single men lived together in a large building, and the families in cot- 
tages. Assisted by Mrs, Craig, the secretary carried out the most enlightened system 
of education for the young, those old enough being alternately employed on the farm 
and in the school. Sanitary arrangements were in a high state of perfection, and 
physical and moral training were most carefully attended to. In respect of these and 
other social arrangements, Mr Craig was a man much before his time, and he has 
since made himself a name in connection with their application in various parts of 
the country. 

The 'New System,' as the Ralahine experiment was called though at first re- 
garded with suspicion and derision, quickly gained favor in the district, so that before 
long outsiders were extremely anxious to become members of the association. In Janu- 
ary. 1832, the community consisted of fifty adults and seventeen children The total 
number afterwards increased to eighty-one. Everything was prosperous, and the 
members of the association were not only benefitted themselves, but their improve- 
ment exercised a beneficent influence upon the people ,in their neighborhood It was 
hoped that other landlords would imitate the excellent example of Mr Vandeleur 
especially as his experiment was one profitable to himself, as well as calculated to 
produce peace and contentment in disturbed Ireland. Just when these hopes were 



APPENDIX xvii 

raised to their highest degree of expectancy, the happy community at Ralahine was 
broken up through the ruin and flight of Mr. Vandeleur, who had lost his property 
by gambling Everything was sold ofif, and the labor notes saved by the members 
would have been worthless had not Mr. Craig, with noble self-sacrifice, redeemed 
them out of his own pocket. 

"We have given but a very scanty description of the system pursued at Ralahine. 
The arrangements were in most respects admirable, and reflected the greatest credit 
upon Mr. Craig as an organizer and administrator. To his wisdom, energy, tact and 
forbearance the success of his experiment was in great measure due, and it is greatly 
to be regretted that he was not in a position to repeat the attempt under more favor- 
able circumstances." 

C" History of a Co-operative Farm,") 



CARLYLE ON THE SOCIAL OBLIGATIONS OF THE NATION FORTY- 
FIVE YEARS AGO. 

■ Inserted at the earnest request of a friend, who was struck by the coincidenee of sotnc 

ideas, similar to those of this volume, set forth so long ago, but as yet 

remaining unrealized, and which I have never read. 

EXTRACTS FROM "PAST AND PRESENT.' 

"A Prime Minister, even here in England, who shall dare believe the heavenly 
omens, and address himself like a man and hero to the great dumb-struggling heart 
of England, and speak out for it, and act out for it; the God s-Justice it is writhing to 
get uttered and perishing for want of — yes, he too will see awaken round him, in pas- 
sionate, burning; all-defiant loyalty; the heart of England- and such a 'support ' as 
no Division-List or Parliamentary Majority was ever yet known to yield a man I Here 
as there, now as theU; he who can and dare trust the heavenly Immensities, all 
earthly Localities are subject to him We will pray for such a man and First-Lord— 
yes, and far better, we will strive and incessantly make ready, each of us, to be worthy 
to serve and second such a First-Lord ! We shall then be as good as sure of his 
arriving; sure of many things, let him arrive or not. 

* Who can despair of Governments that passes a Soldier's Guard-house, or meets 
a red-coated man on the streets ? That a body of men could be got together to kill 
other men when you bade them; this, a priori, does it not seem one of the impossi- 
blest things ? Yet look, behold it: in the stolidest of Do-nothing Governments, that 
impossibility is a thing done," 

—{Carlyle, " Past and Present," page 223 ) 

" Strange, interesting, and yet most mournful to reflect on. Was this then, of all 
the things mankind had some talent for. the one thing, important to learn well, and 
bring to perfection; this of successfully killing one another ? Truly, you have learned 
it well, and carried the business to a high perfection. It is incalculable what, by 
arranging, commanding and regimenting you can make of men. These thousand 
straight-standing, firm-set individuals, who shoulder arms, who march, wheel, advance, 
retreat; and are, for your behoof a magazine charged with fiery death, in the most 
perfect condition of potential activity Few months ago, till the persuasive sergeant 
came, what were they ? Multiform ragged losels, runaway apprentices, starved 
weaverS; thievish valets; an entirely broken population, fast tending towards the 
treadmill. But the persuasive sergeant came, by tap of drum enlisted, or formed 
lists of them, took heartily to drilling them; and he and you have made them this ! 
Most potent effectual for all work whatsoever, is wise planning, firm, combining and 
commanding among men. Let no man despair of Governments who look on these 



xviii APPENDIX 

two sentries at the Horse Guards and our United Service clubs. I could conceive an 
Emigration Service, a Teaching Service, considerable varieties of United and Sepa- 
rate services, of the due thousands strong, all effective as this Fighting Service is; all 
doing their work like it — which work, much more than fighting, is henceforth the nec- 
essity of these new ages we are got into 1 Much lies among us, convulsively, nigh des- 
perately, struggling to be born.'* 

— ("Past and Present," page 224 ) 

" It was well, all this we know; and yet it was not well. Forty soldiers, I am told, 
will disperse the largest Spitalfields mob, forty to ten thousand, that is the proportion 
between drilled and undrilled Much there is which cannot yet be organized in this 
world but somewhat also which can— somewhat also which must. When one thinks, 
for example, what books are become and becoming for us what operative Lancashires 
are become, what a Fourth Estate and innumerable virtualities not yet got to be actu- 
alities are become and becoming, one sees organisms enough in the dim, huge future, 
and United Services quite other than the redcoat one; and much, even in these 
years, struggling to be born I " 

— ("Past and Present," page 226. 

"An effective 'Teaching Service,' I do consider that there must be: some educa- 
tion secretary, captain-general of teachers, who will actually contrive to get us taught. 
Then again, why should there not be an * Emigration Service,' and secretary with 
adjuncts, \vith funds, forces, idle navy ships, and ever-increasing apparatus, in fine an 
effective system of emigration, so that at length before our twenty years of respite 
ended, every honest, willing workman who found England too strait, and the 'organi- 
zation of labor' not yet sufficiently advanced, might find likewise a bridge built to carry 
him into new western lands, there to 'organize' with more elbow room some labor for 
himself I There to be a real blessing, raising new corn for us, purchasing new webs 
and hatchets from us; leaving us at least in peace; instead of staying here to be a 
physical-force Chartist, unblessed and no blessing I Is it not scandalous to consider 
that a Prime Minister could raise within the year, as I have seen it done, a hundred 
and twenty millions sterling to shoot the Freiich; and we are stopped short for want 
of the hundredth part of that to keep the English Living ? The bodies of the English 
living, and the souls of the English living, these two 'Services,' an Education Ser- 
vice and an Emigration Service, these with others, will have actually to be organized, 

" A free bridge for emigrantsi Why, we should then be on a par with America it- 
self, the most favored of all lands that have no government; and we should have, be- 
sides, so many traditions and mementos of priceless things which America has cast 
away. We could proceed deliberately to organize labor not doomed to perish unless 
we effected it within year and day every willing worker that pioved superfluous, find- 
ing a bridge ready for him. This verily will have to be done; the time is big with this. 
Our little Isle is grown too narrow for us; but the world is wide enough yet for another 
six fhousand years. England's sure markets will be among new colonies of English- 
men in all quarters of the Globe, All men trade with all men when mutually conven- 
ient, and are even bound to do it by the Maker of Men. Our friends of China, who 
guiltily refused to trade in these circumstances— had we not to argue with them, in 
cannon-shot at last, and convince them that they ought to trade ? 'Hostile tariffs" 
will arise to shut us out, and then, again, will fall to let us in; bnttheson of England 
— speakers of the English language, were it nothing more — will in all times have the 
irieradicable predisposition to trade with England. Mycale was the Pan-Ionian — 
rendezvous of all the tribes of Ion — for old Greece; why should not London long con- 
tinue the All Saxon Home, rendezvous of all the ' Children of the Harz-Rock' arriving 
in secret samples, from the Antipodes and elsewhere, by steam and otherwise, to the 
• season ' here ? What a future I Wide as the world, if we have the heart and bereism 
for it, which by Heaven's blessing, we shall. 



APPENDIX xix 

*' Keep not standing fixed and rooted. 
I Btiskly venture, briskly roam; 

I Head and hand, where'er thou foot it, 

i And stout heart are still at home: 

! In what land the sun does visit 

! Brisk are we, what e'er betide; 

To give space for wandering is it 

That the world was made so wide. 

"Fourteen hundred years ago it was a considerable ' Emigration Service,' never 
doubt it, by much enlistment, discussion and apparatus that we ourselves arrived 
in this remarkable island, and got into our present difficulties among others.' 

— ("Past and Present," pages 228-230.) 
" The main substance of this immense problem of organizing labor and first of all of 
managing the working classes, will, it is very clear, have to be solved by those who 
stand practically in the middle of it, by those who themselves work and preside over 
work. Of all that can be enacted by any Parliament in regard to it, the germs must 
already lie potentially extant in those two classes who are to obey sncli enactment. A 
human chaos in which there is no light, you vainly attempt to irradiate by light shed 
on it; order never can arise there." 

— (' Past and Present,' pages 231-32.) 

" Look around you. Your world-hosts are all in mutiny, in confusion, destitution, 
on the eve of fiery wreck and madness They will not march farther for you, on the 
six-pence a day and supply-and-demand principle; they will not; nor ought they; 
nor can they. We shall reduce them to order; begin reducing them to order, to just 
subordination; noble loyalty in return for noble guidance Their souls aie driven 
nigh mad; let yours be sane and never saner. Not as a bewildered bewildering mob, 
but as a firm regimented mass, with real captains over them, will these men march 
any more. All human interests, combined human endeavors, and social growth in this 
world have; at a certain stage of their development, required organizing; and work, 
the greatest of human interests, does not require it. 

•'Difficult? Yes, it will be difficult. The short-fiber cotton; that, too, was difficult. 
The waste cotton shrub, long useless, disobedient as the thistle by the wayside; have 
ye not conquered it, made it into beautiful bandana webs, white woven shirts for men, 
bright tint3d air garments wherein flit goddesses? Ye have shivered mountains 
asunder, made the hard iron pliant to you as putty; the forest-giants — marsh-jotuns — 
bear sheaves of golden grain; iEgir — the Sea-Demon himself stretches his back for a 
sleek highway to you, and on Firehorses and Windhorses ye career, Ye are most 
strong. Thor, red-bearded, with his blue sun-eyes, with his cheery heart and strong 
thunder-hammer, he and you have prevailed. Ye are most strong, ye Sons of icy 
North, of the far East, far marching from your rugged Eastern Wildnesses, hitherward 
from the gray dawn of Timel Ye are Sons of the Jotun-\z.ndi; the land of Difficulties 
Conquered. Difficult? You must try this thing. Once try it with the understanding 
that it will and shall have to be done. Try it as you try the paltrier thing, making of 
moneyl I will bet on you once more, against Jotins, Tailor-gods, Double-barrelled 
Law-wards, and Denizens of Chaos whatsoever." 

— ("Past and Present," pages 236-37.) 

"A question here arises: Whether in some ulterior, perhaps not far-distant stage 
of this 'Chivalry of Labor,' your Master-Worker may not find it possible, and needful, 
to grant his Workers permanent z'«2ffi'r?j/ in his enterprise and theirs? So that it be- 
come, in practical result, what in essential act and justice it ever is, a joint ente - 
_prise; all men, from the Chief Master down to the lowest Overseer and Operative, 
economically as well as loyally concerned for it? Which question I do not answer. 



XX APPENDIX 

The answer, here or else far, is perhaps, Yes; and yet one knows the difficulties. 
Despotism is essential in most enterprises; I am told they do not tolerate freedom of 
debate on board a seventy-four. Republican senate and plebiscite would not answer 
well in cotton mills. And yet, observe there too. Freedom— not nomad s or ape's 
Freedom, but man's Freedom; this is indispensable. We must have it and will have 
itl To reconcile Despotism with freedom — well, is that such a mystery? Do you not 
already know the way? It is to make your Despotismy«i-2f Rigorous as Destiny, but 
just, too, as Destiny and its Laws. The Laws ot God; all men obey these, and have no 
'Freedom' at all but in obeying them. The way is already known, part of the way; 
and courage and some qualities are needed for walking on it." 

—("Past and Present," pages 241-42.) 
" Not a hay-game is this man's life, but a battle and a march, a warfare with princi- 
palities and powers, No idle promenade through fragrant orange-groves and green 
flowery spaces, waited on by the choral Muses and rosy Hours. It is a stern pilgrim- 
age through burning sandy solitudes, through regions of thick-ribbed ice. He walks 
among men, loves men with inexpressible soft pity, as they cannot love him, but his 
soul dwells in solitude in the uppermost parts of creation In green oases by the palm- 
tree wells he rests a space, but anon he has to journey forward, escorted by the Terrors 
and the Splendors, the Archdemons and Archangels. All Heaven, all Pandemonium 
are his escort. The stars keen-glancing from the Intensities send tidings to him; the 
graves, silent with their dead, from the Eternities. Deep calls for him unto Deep." 

—("Past and Present," page 249.) 



THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 

The Rev. Dr. Barry read a paper at the Catholic Conference on June 30th, 1890, 
from which I take the following extracts as illustrative of the rising feeling on this 
subject in the Catholic Church. The Rev, Dr, Barry began by defining the proletariat 
as those who have only one possession — their labor. Those who have no land, and no 
stake in the land, no house and no home except the few sticks of furniture they signifi- 
cantly call by the name, no right to employment, but at the most a right to poor relief; and 
who, until the last 20 years, had not even a right to be educated unless by the charity 
of their '* betters " The class which without figure of speech or flights of rhetoriC; is 
homeless, landless, propertyless in our chief cities — that I call the proletariat. Of the 
proletariat he declared there were hundreds of thousands growing up outside the pale 
of all churches. 

He continued; For it is frightfully evident that Christianity has not kept pace 
with the population; that it has lagged terribly behind; that, in plain words, 
we have in our midst a nation of heathens to whom the ideals, the practices, 
and the commandments of religion are things unknown — as little realized in the 
miles on miles of tenement- houses, and the factories which have produced them, 
as though Christ had never lived or never died How could it be otherwise ? 
The great mass of men and women have never had time for religion You 
cannot expect them to work double-tides. With hard physical labor, from 
morning till night in the surroundings we know and see, how much mind 
and leisure is left for higher things on six days of the week ? • . : 

We must look this matter in the face I do not pretend to establish the proportion 
between different sections in which these things happen. Still less am I willing to 
lay the blame on those who are houseless, landless and propertyless. What I say is 
that if the Government of a country allows millions of human beings to be thrown into 
such conditions of living and working as we have seen, these are the consequence^ 
that must bo looked for. "A child," said the Anglican Bishop South, "has a right to be 



APPENDIX xxi 

born, and not to be damned into the world." Here have been millions of children 
literally "'damned into the world," neither their heads nor their hands trained to 
anything useful, their miserable subsistence a thing to be fought and scrambled for. 
their homes, reeking dens under the law of lease-holding which has produced outcast 
London and horrible Glasgow, their right to a playground and amusement curtailed 
to the running gutter, and their great "object-lesson" in life the drunken parents 
who end so often in the prison, the hospital and the workhouse. We need not b@ 
astonished if these not only are not Christians, but have never understood why they 
should be. . . . 

The social condition has created this domestic heathenism. Then the social 
condition must be changed. We stand in need of a public creed — of a social, and if 
you will understand the word, of a lay Christianity. This work cannot be done by the 
clergy, nor within the four walls of a church. The field of battle lies in the school. 
the home, the street, the tavern, the market, and wherever men come together. To 
make the people Christian they must be restored to their homes, and their homes to 
tbera. , 




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